You’re probably heard by now about the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms’ solicitation for a massive new database. It will essentially figure out everything there is to know about you, and your friends too. It’s potentially a massive invasion of privacy on a grand scale.
The folks at Wired tends to be leftists. Let’s take a look at how they’re reacting to what looks like a fabulous tool for an electronic police state.
Primarily, the ATF states it wants the database to speed-up criminal investigations. Instead of requiring an analyst to manually search around for your personal information, the database should “obtain exact matches from partial source data searches” such as social security numbers (or even just a fragment of one), vehicle serial codes, age range, “phonetic name spelling,” or a general area where your address is located. Input that data, and out comes your identity, while the computer automatically establishes connections you have with others.
Many other specific requirements are also to be expected for a federal law enforcement agency: searching names, phone numbers, “nationwide utility data” and reverse phone searches. The data will then be collected to help out during investigations and provide “relevant information and intelligence products.” There’s no hint the database is to be used to track gun sales, which is a big part of the ATF’s job, as the bureau is prohibited by law from establishing a centralized electronic database for gun purchases.
No hint that the ATF wants to use the database to track gun sales, when tracking gun sales is, according to Wired, a “big part of the ATF’s job”?
The fact that Barack Obama told the Brady gun grabbers that he would pursue gun control “under the radar” years before he had Newtown to exploit, plus Obama’s use of the bureaucracy and regulatory state to further aims he cannot win through Congress, also aren’t hints of what the ATF may be up to.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member