It is time for us to say to our government, “No. This we will not allow.”

For those of you who don’t like clicking links, I’ll summarize: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wants to require all ISPs to keep records of ALL of your online activity, for purposes of catching pedophiles and, presumably, tur’rists.

Here’s the problem. Senator Stevens has made it very clear that our government does not understand technology. Now, I’m no hAxx0r but I do seem to recall a technology called “IP spoofing” that makes internet traffic look like it’s coming from someplace other than its actual source. So, what happens when someone trolling online for kiddie porn uses a spoofed IP address that happens to point to the computer grannie uses to e-mail her bridge partners? Or some al-Qaeda sympathizer spoofs the IP address of some random Arabic college student?

This isn’t even touching on the potential for willful misuse of this kind of information. I’m no conspiracy theorist, but considering how much of our day-to-day life is conducted online these days — business, commerce, communication — there’s an enormous potential for abuse. Not to mention simple, ham-fisted, governmental incompetence.

I hate sounding like a foil-hatter, honestly I do, but I’m starting to worry that these tiny nudges on the boundaries of our civil rights are not the random flailings of an incompetent administration, but rather calculated straining at the bumper of the juggernaut of fascism.

I just wrote that and even I think it sounds ridiculous. But that’s precisely part of my worry, that sensible, moderate, thoughtful, intelligent people are dismissing their fears as unrealistic, thinking “It can’t possibly be that bad.” But what if it is?

We as a country have an obligation to protect ourselves from tyranny. We have an obligation to say to our government, “You are overstepping your authority and we are uncomfortable with that.” Are we really going to wait for our leaders to throw their capes over their arms and go “Mwa ha ha” before we say enough is enough? I’m pretty sure it’ll never be that obvious.

The problem is that as long as the current administration equates dissent with treason, our fellow Americans will continue to miss the fact that dissent is the purest and best form of patriotism, the purest and best hope for the continued health of this country.

Do this for me: Read the article linked above. Think about how it might impact you, personally, as a law-abiding, upright citizen. And if you come to the same conclusions I did, tell your congresspeople — tell your friends — tell your neighbors — that this is too much. That this near-ubiquitous surveillance does not meet your standards for a free society. If nothing else, please just let your fellow Americans know that this sort of thing is being talked about.

I have to believe that we do still have the ability to influence public policy. It can’t have gone that far already.

Can it?

Hooray to Scotland Yard for catching terrorists. That’s some fine detective work, Lou.

But.

How much more invasive “security” are we going to put up with? Right now you can’t take liquids on a plane. Liquids of any type. Even colloidal suspensions, or very slow-moving liquids like lip balm or gel deodorant. Here are some questions I would like to respectfully address to the TSA, just for purposes of clarification:

I know I can no longer bring on board the drink that I bought from the McDonalds right next to the gate, because it might be explosive. I also assume that while I may bring French fries, I may not bring ketchup packets. But can I take a cheeseburger on the plane if it has ketchup and mustard on it?

Can I bring items made of rubber or wax, as some scientists classify these as very slow-moving liquids? What about Silly Putty?

My PSP, iPod, cell phone and laptop all have liquid crystal displays. Is that OK?

Ice is a solid. Can I bring that onto the plane even though it will become a liquid in transit?

Similarly, instant Jell-o starts as a liquid but becomes solid. Can I bring some of that?

My vitamin suppliments are gelcaps. Are these acceptible?

Since I will not be able to bring bottled water with me and the flight attendants will come by maybe twice with tiny cups of water, I will need to find some other way to stay hydrated. Is it OK if I bring slices of watermelon?

Chocolate-covered cherries tend to have a small bit of liquid in them. Are these allowed onboard?

And finally, if I’ve had very much to drink before boarding, can I bring the urine in my bladder on board with me?

Look…I’m OK with these bizarre restrictions on a temporary basis if you’re concerned there are more liquibombers at large. That is, if you know, with utter certainty, that there were more people involved in this plot than the ones you’ve caught, and you are specifically concerned with this specific plan being carried out. If there’s a legitimate, immediate risk, I’m behind you 100 percent. After all, better to be inconvenienced than be, you know, dead.

But.

If you’re thinking about making this a permanent — or even semipermanent — thing, like the ridiculous lighter ban…you’re fucking crazy. We already put up with ridiculous amounts of bullshit to fly. (What other product or service do you know of where it’s totally legal to take someone’s money but only maybe provide them with the service they paid for?) If you continue to tell us we can’t bring along bottled fucking water that we bought at the fucking airport — you’re insane. The policy is so ridiculous that it can’t help but make you look like incompetent tools. Keep this in place and one of two things will happen:

1. People will recognize that you’re just building little walls of sand that do absolutely nothing, or

2. People will just stop flying. The airlines will go bankrupt, and the US economy will irrevocably change.

Hey, possibly both.

Do we have a right to fly? Nope. But we sure as hell have a right to demand respectful treatment from our government and its contractors.

In closing, I’d like to share this tidbit I got from the comments of the always awesome Making Light:

Dan Guy ::: August 11, 2006, 05:25 AM:
From LiveJornal user “rhiannonstone”:

First they came for the knitting needles,
and I didn’t speak up
Because I wasn’t much of a knitter
Then they came for the shoes,
and I didn’t speak up
Because I wear sandals
Then they came for the lighters,
and I didn’t speak up
Because I don’t smoke
Then they came for my Dr Pepper
And now it’s on, motherfuckers!

After reading about how our government elected not to protect New Orleans from catastrophic hurricanes, I just had to share this little tidbit: Among the things that the money that should have been spent on Nawlins was actually spent on is this gem I get to see every morning:

Homeland Security has launched the “Secure Automated Inspection Lanes (SAIL) Screening Pilot Project” here in San Francisco. This delightful scheme will screen one hundred percent of all passengers on the ferry route from Marin County–the most affluent county in the entire country–to downtown San Francisco. Passengers are handed a sheet of (I assume specially treated) paper, stand in a line, and then hand the paper to a TSA employee who slots it into a machine to test if you’ve been handling explosives.

Because, you know, if I plan to blow up a building in San Francisco, oh yeah, I’m so gonna take the ferry.

It’s not the program that twists my knickers as much as the advertising for the program. Thousands of slickly-produced, full-color brochures have been distributed (and discarded), featuring gorgeous photos of the ferries in action, printed on heavy card stock with a semi-matte finish. (You can see a PDF here.) I dunno if anyone else here has ever seen any numbers for printing this kind of thing, but let me tell you, that shit is expensive. And that’s not even counting the huge posters and special tickets that are all being distributed as part of this PILOT program. (See them all here.) So we can assume that, should this ever become a full-fledged, official program, we can expect another round of posters, fliers, and tickets.

Roughly four thousand people ride the ferry every day (not sure if that counts return trips; it could be as low as two or as much as eight). Contrast this with one hundred thousand people driving across the Golden Gate Bridge every day (which, incidentally, is owned by the same company that runs the ferries). And, Oklahoma City showed us what a van can do. (Oh yeah, the ferries are people-only; no vehicles.)

Bottom line: Homeland Security has never made me feel safe. In fact, they’ve always made me feel less safe, because they always seem to focus on programs that would make absolutely no real difference, to the detriment of anything that might prove truly effective in protecting this country.