The Washington Post published an article by two of its reporters, Dana Priest and William H. Arkin, called Top Secret America. The gist of this well written, capably researched story is that agencies at many areas of federal, state, and local government agencies are collecting data and otherwise monitoring citizens who often have not committed a crime. The driver for this profound information gathering on often entirely innocent people is the belief that these efforts thwart terrorism and prevent other, serious crimes that do not threaten people's lives or national security.The most disturbing part of the article notes how surveillance technology, equipment, and investigative techniques used in our current Asian wars have been brought home and leveraged by local law enforcement. What's even more troubling is the STASI-like storage of hearsay information, and law enforcement agencies' seeming preference for it, rather than for the methodical development of good, old-fashioned, evidence-based material.
Read the WaPo article.
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