Privacy in sheep?s clothing

Josey1

Privacy in sheep's clothing New bill would strip away privacy of legal gun owners OPINIONBy Brock N. MeeksMSNBC WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 - I want to meet the syntactical alchemist that turned the phrase "fear, uncertainty and doubt" into "mandated loss of privacy" and shove that person back through the rip in the time space continuum that was America in the good ol' days of pre-9/11. It wouldn't be gentle shove. IT SEEMS EVERY other morning since the September attacks this lawmaker or that is shooting his or her mouth off, ranting about the immediate need for another piece of privacy-stripping legislation in the name of protecting America and fighting an undeclared war on terrorism. The latest proposed legislative debacle comes from Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, and would create a de facto registration database of all legal gun owners. The bill flies in the face of current law. The only thing that could make Schumer's bill more ludicrous would be if it contained a sub-section mandating the registration of serial numbers on all box cutters. And here's the really scary part: in opposing this bill I'm siding with the National Rifle Association. The NRA says the proposal is an attempt by "anti-gun extremists" to "create the mechanism to establish a registry of law-abiding gun purchasers." I'm not a gun owner, though I grew up with guns and hunted often with my father. My personal preference is for stricter gun control laws and that's me in the corner raising my hand when asked "who would like to see an end to sales at gun shows?" That said, Schumer's proposed bill, dubbed "Use NICS in Terrorist Investigations Act" (S. 1788) is bad on principle and despicable in its genesis: a hysterical atmosphere of fear, uncertainty and doubt, better known in the cyber world as FUD. FUD is a kind of mind-fog; it clutters the debate with scare tactics and hyperbolic scenarios. FUD is found daily on Capitol Hill and has been in abundant supply during any congressional hearing on computer crime. The National Instant Check System (NICS) is used to check the background of persons wanting to purchase a firearm. The names and information input into NICS are supposed to be temporary, the law creating the NICS says to "destroy all records. relating to the person or the transfer" as it relates to the sale of a gun by a licensed dealer. But Schumer's bill would mandate the permanent data warehousing of that information and make it available to every law enforcement official in the country, down to the local sheriff in some rural municipality. When the NRA says such a proposal is a not so subtle attempt to create "gun owner registration, plain and simple" it's right. BLIND-SIDED BY FEAR Schumer and co-sponsor Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., coughed up this hairball legislation in the aftermath of a hearing in which they grilled Attorney General John Ashcroft for having denied the FBI's request to access NICS data in the course of the bureau's ever widening investigation into terrorism on the home front. But the NICS was never intended to be used by law enforcement as a means of tagging legal gun owners, yet Schumer's bill allows just that, blatantly stripping away the privacy rights of any legal gun owner. As a non-gun owner, I should care less, the law doesn't affect me. But it does, if for no other reason than it is marching lock step with a rash of recent privacy crushing legislation and presidential directives. First, the bill runs roughshod over existing and well vetted law that includes privacy safeguards. Second, it turns a benign technology - a database - against the people. And unlike a lot of other hysterical legislation being passed under the cloak of protecting the home front from the threat of terrorism, the language of this bill has no so-called "sundown" provision that requires it to be revisited and re-approved at a predetermined date or be stricken from the books. And if you still need convincing that this proposal is just anti-privacy legislation sleeping in the tall grass, the word "terrorism" doesn't appear anywhere in its language except for the title. Indeed, the meat of Schumer's bill reads: "[A]llow the Federal Bureau of Investigation to access NICS audit log records for the purpose of responding to an inquiry from any federal, state, or local law enforcement agency in connection with a civil or criminal law enforcement investigation." If the bill passes, law enforcement suddenly has an electronic rolodex of all law abiding gun owners. Guns today, box cutters and copies of the Qur'an tomorrow? It wouldn't surprise me. http://www.msnbc.com/news/675392.asp

jet

josey1 you post alot and I thank you.even if I don't respond.

badboybob

Thanks Josey. No surprise here from those two socialist *