Letter: Insist government doesn’t go unchecked

Sunday, Feb. 12, 2006 | 12:32 p.m.

In yet another attempt to weaken the constitutional privacy rights of U.S. citizens, the U.S. government, through the Homeland Security Department is in the process of developing a massive data-mining system called Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement.

Its efforts have, so far, been kept relatively secret, as is the usual practice of this administration. The system allows the government to secretly search any electronic records, including e-mails and blogs of all Americans without any oversight.

The information collected will be made available to any federal, state, local or private agency with an interest in security matters. Parts of the system are already operational; other parts are still in the process of development.

Of course, the usual 9/11 mantra is again being used to justify this practice, but without oversight, there is no guarantee that information could not also be collected that is unrelated to terrorist threats, such as against political opponents or groups that choose to speak out against government programs.

Americans need to become much more vigilant about their privacy rights.

Wallace J. Henkelman, Henderson