GOP Likes Big Brother Looking Over Our Shoulders

Big Brother In Action

Although the Republican Party spends so much time campaigning on the issue of keeping Big Bad Government out of our lives, they frequently support legislation that fosters government intervention in our private lives. The list of such legislation is quite long, ranging from the so-called Patriot Act to legislation about abortion and homosexuality.


The most recent attack on our privacy is a bill passed by the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee. This bill would require ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to retain subscriber records for government surveillance.And, as with the Patriot Act, they label the legislation after a desirable outcome rather than a description of what it does. In this case, using their "the-end-justifies-the-means" philosophy, they tell us that the legislation will help law enforcement track down pedophiles. Perhaps it will, just as executing all convicted felons would reduce crime, but that is the reason our founding fathers had the foresight to limit the powers of government.


"The bill is mislabeled," Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), a senior member of the panel told CNET. "This is not protecting children from Internet pornography. It's creating a database for everybody in this country for a lot of other purposes." (Eric Dolan, The Raw Story, July 28, 2011)


Obviously the bill should be called "The Internet Data Retention Act."


"The data retention mandate in this bill would treat every Internet user like a criminal and threaten the online privacy and free speech rights of every American, as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have recognized," Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation said. (cf. Dolan, above)


It is time American voters  realize that many Republicans do not really believe in their own  Libertarian rhetoric. They seem all too comfortable with allowing Big Brother to look over our shoulders.