by John W. Whitehead, Rutherford Institute:
“I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”—Senator Frank Church on Meet The Press, 1975
If you give the government an inch, it will always take a mile.
This is how the slippery slope to all-out persecution starts.
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Martin Niemöller’s warning about the widening net that ensnares us all, a warning issued in response to the threat posed by Nazi Germany’s fascist regime, still applies.
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
This particular slippery slope has to do with the government’s use of geofence technology, which uses cell phone location data to identify people who are in a particular area at any given time.
First, police began using geofence warrants to carry out dragnet sweeps of individuals near a crime scene.
Then the FBI used geofence warrants to identify individuals who were in the vicinity of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
It wasn’t long before government officials in California used cell phone and geofence data to track the number and movements of churchgoers on church grounds during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
If we’ve already reached the point where people praying and gathering on church grounds merits this level of government scrutiny and sanctions, we’re not too far from free-falling into a total surveillance state.
Dragnet geofence surveillance sweeps can and eventually will be used to target as a suspect every person in any given place at any given time and sweep them up into a never-ending virtual line-up in the hopes of matching a criminal to every crime.
There really can be no overstating the danger.
The government’s efforts to round up those who took part in the Jan. 6 Capitol protests provided a glimpse of exactly how vulnerable we all are to the menace of a surveillance state that aspires to a God-like awareness of our lives.
Relying on selfies, social media posts, location data, geotagged photos, facial recognition, surveillance cameras and crowdsourcing, government agents compiled a massive data trove on anyone and everyone who may have been anywhere in the vicinity of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Included in that data roundup were individuals who may have had nothing to do with the protests but whose cell phone location data identified them as being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
You didn’t even have to be involved in the Capitol protests to qualify for a visit from the FBI: investigators reportedly tracked—and questioned—anyone whose cell phones connected to wi-fi or pinged cell phone towers near the Capitol.
One man, who had gone out for a walk with his daughters only to end up stranded near the Capitol crowds, actually had FBI agents show up at his door days later. Using Google Maps, agents were able to pinpoint exactly where they were standing and for how long.
The massive amount of surveillance data available to the government is staggering.
As investigative journalists Charlie Warzel and Stuart A. Thompson explain, “This [surveillance] data…provide[s] an intimate record of people whether they were visiting drug treatment centers, strip clubs, casinos, abortion clinics or places of worship.”
In such a surveillance ecosystem, we’re all suspects and databits to be tracked, catalogued and targeted.
Forget about being innocent until proven guilty.
Although the Constitution requires the government to provide solid proof of criminal activity before it can deprive a citizen of life or liberty, the government has turned that fundamental assurance of due process on its head.
Now, thanks to the digital trails and digital footprints we all leave behind, you start off guilty and have to prove your innocence.
In an age of overcriminalization, when the average American unknowingly commits at least three crimes a day, there is no one who would be spared.
The ramifications of empowering the government to sidestep fundamental due process safeguards are so chilling and so far-reaching as to put a target on the back of anyone who happens to be in the same place where a crime takes place.
As Warzel and Thompson warn:
“To think that the information will be used against individuals only if they’ve broken the law is naïve; such data is collected and remains vulnerable to use and abuse whether people gather in support of an insurrection or they justly protest police violence… This collection will only grow more sophisticated… It gets easier by the day… it does not discriminate. It harvests from the phones of MAGA rioters, police officers, lawmakers and passers-by. There is no evidence, from the past or current day, that the power this data collection offers will be used only to good ends. There is no evidence that if we allow it to continue to happen, the country will be safer or fairer.”
Saint or sinner, it doesn’t matter because we’re all being swept up into a massive digital data dragnet that does not distinguish between those who are innocent of wrongdoing, suspects, or criminals.
Case in point: consider what happened to Calvary Chapel during COVID-19.
