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Watching You Systematic Federal Surveillance of Ordinary Americans by Charlotte Twight

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Watching You Systematic Federal Surveillance of Ordinary Americans by Charlotte Twight Watching You Systematic Federal Surveillance of Ordinary Americans by Charlotte Twight No. 69 October 17, 2001 To combat terrorism, Attorney General John empower the federal government to obtain a Ashcroft has asked Congress to “enhance” the detailed portrait of any person: the checks he government’s ability to conduct domestic surveil- writes, the types of causes he supports, and what lance of citizens. The Justice Department’s leg- he says “privately” to his doctor. Despite wide- islative proposals would give federal law enforce- spread public concern about preserving privacy, ment agents new access to personal information these data collection systems have been enacted contained in business and school records. Before in the name of “reducing fraud” and “promot- acting on those legislative proposals, lawmakers ing efficiency” in various government programs. should pause to consider the extent to which the Having exposed most areas of American life lives of ordinary Americans already are moni- to ongoing government scrutiny and recording, tored by the federal government. Congress is now poised to expand and univer- Over the years, the federal government has salize federal tracking of citizen life. The instituted a variety of data collection programs inevitable consequence of such constant surveil- that compel the production, retention, and dis- lance, however, is metastasizing government semination of personal information about every control over society. If that happens, our gov- American citizen. Linked through an individ- ernment will have perverted its most fundamen- ual’s Social Security number, these labor, med- tal mission and destroyed the privacy and liber- ical, education and financial databases now ty that it was supposed to protect. Charlotte Twight is a professor of economics at Boise State University, a lawyer, and the author of Dependent on D.C.: The Rise of Federal Control over the Lives of Ordinary Americans (Palgrave/St. Martin’s, January 2002), from which this is excerpted. The outgrowth of When a large part of the information information about the individual. If a con- all-encompassing about economic statistics or administra- temporary novelist were to portray the emer- tive arrangements is collected and issued gence of such a government in America, his federal collection by the government, investigators and novel undoubtedly would be regarded as of personal critics are forced to approach the very futuristic fiction, in the same vein as George officials they may criticise for the infor- Orwell’s 1984. information is mation that might give substance to Yet this national portrait is no longer fic- increased govern- their criticisms. tion. The foregoing description is of a gov- ment power and ernment that now wields exactly those omi- H. B. Acton (1971)1 nous powers over the citizenry: America’s concomitant federal government at the beginning of the individual twenty-first century. The logical outgrowth dependence on Dependency’s Forgotten of such all-encompassing federal collection Vector: Government- of personal information is increased govern- government. ment power and concomitant individual Compelled Information dependence on government. Altered political Imagine for a moment a nation whose transaction costs again have supplied the central government mandated ongoing col- means, with the information-collection lection of detailed personal information— authority described in this chapter emerging individually identified—recording each citi- both as a product and instrument of transac- zen’s employment, income, childhood and tion-cost manipulation. subsequent educational experiences, medical Governments long have recognized infor- history (including doctors’ subjective impres- mation collection’s capacity to erode individ- sions), financial transactions (including ual autonomy by fostering deep personal copies of personal checks written), ancestry, uncertainty about the uses to which the living conditions (including bathroom, information will be put. Law professor Paul kitchen, and bedroom facilities), rent or Schwartz described this linkage clearly: mortgage payments, household expenses, roommates and their characteristics, in- Personal information can be shared to home telephone service, automobile owner- develop a basis for trust, but the manda- ship, household heating and sewage systems, tory disclosure of personal information number of stillbirths, language capability— can have a destructive effect on human and periodically even demanded to know independence. Totalitarian regimes what time each person in the household usu- have already demonstrated the fragility ally left home to go to work during the previ- of the human capacity for autonomy. ous week. Imagine further that such a gov- The effectiveness of these regimes in ren- ernment assigned every citizen a central gov- dering adults as helpless as children is in ernment identification number at birth and large part a product of the uncertainty mandated its use in reporting the informa- that they instill regarding their use of tion listed above. Suppose the same govern- personal information.2 ment were actively considering mandatory nationwide use of a “biometric identifier,” With respect to U.S. government data collec- such as fingerprints or retinal scans, along tion in the 1990s, he added: “Americans no with a new counterfeit-proof permanent gov- longer know how their personal information ernment identification card incorporating will be applied, who will gain access to it, and the individual’s government-issued number what decisions will be made with it. The and other personal information, encoded in resulting uncertainty increases pressure for magnetic strips and embedded computer conformity. Individuals whose personal data chips capable of holding up to 1,600 pages of are shared, processed and stored by a myste- 2 rious, incalculable bureaucracy will be more nationwide as mandated by the 1996 likely to act as the government wishes them Health Insurance Portability and to behave.” With extensive federal data col- Accountability Act (HIPAA); lection creating ever greater incentives to • Education databases—revealing federal behave as government wishes us to behave, databases mandated by Goals 2000 and the result is metastasizing government con- related 1994 education acts that estab- trol. Indeed, Schwartz viewed the computer’s lish detailed national records of chil- ability to digitize personal information as dren’s educational experiences and offering “the state and society a powerful way socioeconomic status; and to control the behavior of individuals.”3The • Financial databases—describing provi- result—and often the purpose—is a profound sions of federal statutory law requiring erosion of individual autonomy. banks and other financial institutions to This chapter focuses on existing central create permanent, readily retrievable government data-collection programs that records of each individual’s checks, share one defining characteristic: they com- deposits, and other financial activities. pel production, retention, and dissemination of personal information about every These databases, linked by individuals’ Social American citizen.4 Their target is ordinary Security numbers, now empower the federal There is always American citizens carrying out ordinary day government to obtain an astonishingly an asserted bene- to-day activities of life. Although these pro- detailed portrait of any person in America, fit to be obtained, grams by no means constitute the whole uni- including the checks he writes, the types of verse of federal data-collection activity, today causes he supports, and even what he says a plausible cover they are the government’s most critical infor- “privately” to his doctor. story. mational levers for institutionalizing govern- Of course, federal officials always provide ment control, individual dependence, and an appealing reason for such governmental unprecedented threats to cherished intrusion into our private lives, however American liberties. Even within this circum- inadequate the reason or unconstitutional scribed sphere, the immense volume of feder- the intrusion. As we have seen, they pre- al data collection defies brief summary. dictably use political transaction-cost manip- Accordingly, this chapter highlights the ulation in their effort to minimize resistance, development and recent expansion of increasing the transaction costs to private individuals of perceiving—and taking collec- • Databases keyed to Social Security numbers— tive action to resist—governmental encroach- examining unchecked use of Social ments. There is always an asserted benefit to Security numbers as a fulcrum for gov- be obtained, a plausible cover story. ernment data collection about individu- The ostensible reasons have been diverse. als, and probing current legislative We have been told that government-mandated efforts to establish a national identifica- use of Social Security numbers in electronic tion card; databases will help to “reduce fraud”—tax • Labor databases—analyzing statutory pro- fraud, welfare fraud, the usual litany. We have visions aimed at building a federal data- been told that requiring businesses to contact base of all American workers and requir- the government for approval before hiring ing employers to obtain the central gov- anyone will help in “cracking down on illegal ernment’s approval before hiring immigration.” We have been told that forcing employees; private physicians to record what we say to • Medical
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