Vice Squad, The Penguin is everywhere

So I saw this piece from the St. Louis Post Dispatch, written by Kevin Horrigan, Vice Squad: A perfectly legitimate scoop, which does a great job of summing up my concerns with the recent violations of personal civil rights by members of the executive branch. It begs the question of where is the line of what is permissible, and what is exempt.

Dick Cheney is on Fox News. He is saying the Pentagon has every right to collect information from banks, phone companies and credit bureaus "on people we have reason to suspect."

All the Pentagon has to do, he says, is send a "national security letter" to, say, a bank, stating one of its customers is a "potential terrorist target," and presto! The information is theirs. No need for judges, warrants or anything else. Just write a letter.

Suddenly the Defense Department is in the business of snooping into Americans' lives. Isn't that the FBI's job? Don't the Army and Navy have other things to do?

Dick Cheney says not to worry about it.

"It's perfectly legitimate activity. There's nothing wrong with it or illegal. It doesn't violate people's civil rights," Dick Cheney says.

Horrigan continues on into how deep into our private lives executive privilege allows, right down to our refrigerator.

I throw on my clothes and run to the car. Dick Cheney is sitting in the back seat.

"I have a perfectly legitimate question for you," he says. "What kind of gasoline do you use? If it's CITGO, you've got a problem. That's Hugo Chavez, com-symp, Fidel-hugging Venezuelan oil. The man tells the United Nations your president is the devil and you're buying his oil? What's wrong with good old-fashioned oil from my friends in Saudi Arabia? I'm going to have the Pentagon write you up."

My dog jumps into the back seat with Dick Cheney and growls. "What kind of dog is this, a Labrador retriever?" he says. "Labrador is in Canada, isn't it? What's with you people with your Canadian dogs, Canadian bacon, Canada geese?"

It's none of your business what kind of dog I have.

"It's a perfectly legitimate activity, checking out people's dogs. You'd be surprised at how many people have foreign dogs. German shepherds, French poodles, Hungarian Vizslas. You should have a Coalition dog. You need an American pit bull terrier or an English bulldog. I can make you a deal on an Afghan wolfhound."

I don't want a wolfhound. I want you out of my car.

"Why? What are you hiding?"

I storm back into the house. I lock the doors. I go upstairs and crawl into bed. I grab a book and flip on the reading lamp.

"Hi, there," Dick Cheney says, pulling the covers back and sliding in next to me. He is wearing red polka-dot pajamas. "Mind if I ask you what you're reading? It's a perfectly legitimate question."

I do mind, I say, hiding the book's cover. It's none of your business.

"Wrong-o," Dick Cheney smiles. "It might be a terrorist training manual. It might be something suspicious, like the Quran or 'An Inconvenient Truth.' Besides, it's a library book. We can always check your library records."

How much erosion of our civil rights are we willing to lose in order to be more secure and safe? I say none, fight the power and fight for our individual rights to live, liberty and the pursuit of happiness without government interference.

What Privacy? - I also found this piece at the Washington Times, and have major concerns about how much personal information is available in the general public realm, and how easy it is now to obtain via the Internet. Not sure what can be done about it, other than to state it as a concern and monitor the availability and quantity to ensure your truly private information remains private.