release

President Bush today signed an updated and renewed version of the Patriot Act (can’t spell “Patriot” without “riot,” can we?) which brings us the perfect hook to this column by Mark Steyn, (link via Say Anything), discussing abuses of the Patriot Act - not by government, but by private citizens.

I had to sign a tedious business contract the other day. They wanted my corporation number — fair enough — plus my Social Security number — well, if you insist — and also my driver’s license number — hang on, what’s the deal with that?

Well, we e-mailed over a query and they e-mailed back that it was a requirement of the Patriot Act. So we asked where exactly in the Patriot Act could this particular requirement be found and, after a bit of a delay, we got an answer.

And on discovering that there was no mention of driver’s licenses in that particular subsection, I wrote back that we have a policy of reporting all erroneous invocations of the Patriot Act to the Department of Homeland Security on the grounds that such invocations weaken the rationale for the act, and thereby undermine public support for genuine anti-terrorism measures and thus constitute a threat to America’s national security.

And about 10 minutes after that the guy sent back an e-mail saying he didn’t need the driver’s license number after all.

The classic example of this is, of course, the airlines, who have long demanded a photo ID - “Papers, please!” - for who knows what purpose (data mining, I suppose) and who now, since 9/11, have the “national security” excuse for requiring exactly that. (Side note - about ten years ago, one of Dineen’s classmates was denied boarding on a flight for a weekend trip because he booked the ticket under his nickname rather than his legal name. He missed the entire weekend trip.)

Never mind that arbitrary ID checks don’t actually increase security. We know exactly who the 9/11 hijackers were, and did before they boarded the planes.

So in the face of widespread private-sector abuse, I love the idea of reporting erroneous invocations of the Patriot Act. But why bury those reports in the Department of Homeland Security? We should have a clearinghouse on the web. The clearinghouse should include both private and public sector abuses, to shame the private actors and improve oversight for the public officials.

As far as I can find, no such clearinghouse exists. And since we are, as the President notes, in a long war, well need to take out a long-term loan to pay the price of liberty.