We must not let this nationwide tragedy lead to an endless amount of personal tragedy in the years to come.

We must not let the government use these terrible events as a way of getting its foot in the door of all out personal lives.

The specter of Big Brother has been looming ever-closer since George Orwell first put pen to paper. Intrusion into all our lives by those who have power has been a constant worry to those of an independent mindset, and these people of the moment are quaking with great fear. And, we say, with great right.

The Bush administration, with great willingness form Congress, is moving to place itself firmly in our business with the Sept. 11 massacre as its excuse. In the name of national self-defense they ask us to give up our personal privacy.

The FBI already has their Carnivore program in place at several major email companies, scanning our private letters for whatever keywords they deem incriminating. No warrant, so reason for suspect, but our electronic mail is free game for out government ‘betters’ to pass judgment on us. It is only poised to become worse.

A loosening of restrictions on federal phone taps is one of the worst domestic dangers that we currently face. Vice President Cheney is demanding that all the phones a suspect may use should be able to be tapped at the federal government’s discretion, rather than just the phone listed on the warrant issued by a judge, as is the rule today. There has also been talk of simply having phone taps available at the FBI/CIA’s will, with no warrant needed, no judge’s approval. The horrors of this – persecution, racial profiling, rampant invasion of privacy with no real use – would drastically alter the lives of many unsuspecting victims.

Also, the movement to ban encryption software protecting personal email from devices such as Carnivore and other snooping programs – public and private – must be stopped. Privacy programs are there for just that reason – every human being has the right to know that their private correspondence is not being perused by Uncle Sam and used for who knows what purpose.

Would these measure prevent some crimes? Some attacks? That is an unknown, although the odds are that there would be at least some government success stories from these new invasive policies. However, that gain must be held up against the risk that such intrusion into private business will cause in historically free America.

At what price must order come? At the cost of freedom? Any precedent in unnecessary and blanket government prying into private life without any checks must cause horror in a freedom-loving people. We must not let these propositions pass, no matter what horror we may feel at last week’s terrible events.