[Marxism] The security state

["Jurriaan Bendien" <andromeda246@xxxxxxxxx>]

In 1980, German socialist scholar Joachim Hirsch published Der
Sicherheitsstaat" (The security state) followed by "Das neue Gesicht des
Kapitalismus" (The new face of capitalism, 1986) and most recently "Vom
Sicherheitsstaat zum nationalen Wettbewerbsstaat" (the national competitive
state). But what does it all mean at a personal level ? Here's a clip from
www.expactica.com :

Recently, the European Commission announced - over vocal objections by the
European Parliament and its own advisory group - that it will permit the
United States government direct access to airline passenger data.

This means that before you fly to or via the United States, details of your
reservation, including credit card number, flying history and even meal
preferences, will be transmitted to the US government for "screening" and
will be retained in a database for a minimum of 3.5 years up to an
indefinite period.
This is not the time to be turning over the personal data of European
residents to the American government. First, there is no evidence that
collection and monitoring of personal information does anything to stop
terrorism.

The next terrorist is more likely to be an undocumented student from rural
Pakistan than a convicted criminal. He is not going to have charges from
Osama's Live Bait and Fertiliser Shop on his American Express card, or a
subscription to Terrorist Weekly.

Second, and more seriously, is that the United States has a long - very
long - history of abusing personal information and surveillance powers for
political purposes to the detriment of the entirely innocent.

Whether we are talking about FBI surveillance and intimidation of suspected
communists in the 1950s and 1960s or physical abuse of French journalists
arriving in the US in 2003, America has a problem distinguishing real
threats from imagined ones.

You will recall the Oregon lawyer, Brandon Mayfield, who was imprisoned for
two weeks in May because his fingerprints matched an object found in the
Madrid bombing. Except they didn't. The FBI made a mistake, and even then a
judge had to intervene to get the man released. How did the FBI get
Mayfield's fingerprint in the first place? He was in the military, and all
soldiers are fingerprinted. So will all visitors to the United States,
including you - your biometric data (fingerprints or retinal scan, for
example) will be in your passport, or you will be printed on arrival.

(...) Just one small - and pretty minor - example is the JFK immigration
clerk who when faced with a Dutch passport demanded, "Why don't you go back
to Belgium, or wherever you came from?" And we want to give these people are
credit card details?  If you've every tried to have your credit report
corrected, you'll agree that software and bureaucracy can create a disaster
waiting to happen.  Except this time it's not a loan you'll be denied when a
mistake is made - it will be your liberty.

By stealth, the US is building vast databanks of personal information on
citizens and non-citizens, criminals and the entirely innocent. When
investigating a murder recently, the FBI had 1.5 million relevant DNA
samples to search. How did they get so many samples? Get arrested or even
detained - legitimately or not - and your fingerprints go into the system,
maybe your DNA.  Join the military or certain agencies, same thing. (...)

http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=1&story_id=910
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