*** No Place to Hide?

[This article was written in 1998. Today, a decade later, world
leaders are fast approaching their goals.]

Surveillance is becoming a normal part of life in the "free" nations
of the world, and America is leading the way. Surveillance cameras
like those Andy and I saw along streets in Australia some years ago
are now posted in schools, hospitals, and workplaces in this country.
But such visible signs of a watchful Big Brother pale in comparison to
a greater threat. Beyond the sight of ordinary Americans lurk vast
interconnected systems of private, state, federal and international
databanks. Their fast-growing files of personal information about
ordinary citizens are now shared, sold, distorted, and often used to
monitor, manipulate, and manage lives in ways we can hardly conceive.

Long before The New York Times (July 20, 1998) announced President
Clinton's plans for "a giant medical database" with the "unique health
identifier" needed to monitor people "from cradle to grave,"[1] these
invasive databanks were eroding our freedom. In The Sale of Privacy,
a 1992 book exposing this growing threat, Jeffrey Rothfeder tells the
story of Ernest Trent who was severely injured on his job and received
Workman's Compensation.

This personal information was sent to a large databank accessible to
potential employers -- but not to Trent. Needing a less physically
demanding job, he began his search and faced nearly 200 rejections.
His qualifications were excellent. Why, then, would no one hire him?
Finally a friend with a small business checked his file in the
databank and saw the problem. Though Trent had done nothing wrong, he
had been "blacklisted".

Long-established private databanks may betray our trust and spread
false or incriminating data. But even more alarming is the
fast-growing union of federal databanks tracking American citizens.
(See "A National Information System - Executive Order #13011") In
flagrant violation of the Privacy Act of 1974,[2] the IRS, FBI, CIA
and other federal agencies have been gathering and sharing electronic
files on countless millions of Americans. Many who, like myself,
question the growing power of our federal government are apparently
included in this massive surveillance system.

"The numbers [of databanks] are staggering," wrote Rothfeder He
explained why:

"The 178 largest federal agencies and departments maintain nearly two
thousand databanks, virtually all of them computerized and outsize,
containing tens of millions of files each. Peppering these records
are mind-boggling permutations of Social Security numbers, names and
addresses, and financial, health, education, demographic, and
occupational information-- obtained from individuals themselves and
from external sources such as state government files, the Census
Bureau, the credit industry, and insurance companies... Meanwhile,
outsiders who have no legal right to know about these databanks or
their contents are inexplicably given free access to them..." [3]
Rothfeder pointed to the FBI's National Crime Information Center
(NCID) as an example of the malignant expansion of these databanks.
Keep in mind, this was written in 1992:

"At its inception in 1967, NCIC had about three hundred thousand
records, mostly about people involved in robberies, auto theft, and
stealing license plates. NCIC has grown nearly twentyfold since then.
It currently maintains records on twenty million Americans in more
than a dozen categories...

"The FBI wants to implement the most massive NCIC expansion to date.
New proposals would turn the computerized criminal records index into
a monstrously huge national databank with tentacles that reach into
virtually every information storehouse in the government and the
private sector...

"Not only does it provide access to records of criminals, it also
supplies files on people with radical political leanings... And
because the database is such a wide-open, virtually unregulated forum
of criminals and suspects, it has led to serious invasion of privacy
based on mistaken identity and an unwillingness by many authorities to
remove a name from NCIC once it's there."[4]

The missing link in these huge data collecting systems has been a
fail-safe "identifier", a uniform computer code that would clearly
identify every person and help standardize information in a massive
new government-and-private tracking system. So, in 1996, our
Republican Congress passed a law that called for such an
identifier.[5] Like most steps toward greater government control, this
"personal identifier" was promoted under the noble banner of a public
need: a coordinated health care system in which a job change would not
cause the loss of insurance.

It was now up to the Clinton administration to "assign codes, as law
requires, to create giant medical database." According to The New
York Times article titled "A Unique Personal Identifier", "every
person would be given an electronic medical identification code."[6]
It would enable the vast system of federal databanks not only to
monitor us "from cradle to grave," but also assess compliance with the
evolving global standards for politically correct values and behavior
-- a process essential to the sustainable development of human as well
as natural resources. This "identifier" could use Social Security
numbers or a new "composite number" based on personal history, or it
could be a "'biomedical marker,' like a thumb print or an electronic
scan of the retina."[7]

Mental Health. Keep in mind, "health" includes mental health. And
the political and education leaders who intend to mold human resources
for the 21st century community are more interested in your mental
health than in your physical health. (See "The UN Plan for Your
Mental Health")

This massive identification and tracking system would be implemented
by Secretary Donna Shalala and her Department of Health and Human
Services. Its health guidelines -- including mental health -- match
those established by the World Health Organization (WHO) half a
century ago.

Psychiatrist Brock Chisholm, former chief of the WHO, summarized these
international guidelines back in 1946. Notice his hostility toward
biblical absolutes and values:

"The responsibility for charting the necessary changes in human
behavior rests clearly on the sciences working in that field.
Psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists, economists, and
politicians must face this responsibility...

"Prejudice, isolationism, the ability emotionally and uncritically to
believe unreasonable things... They are all well known and recognized
neurotic symptoms...

"When we see neurotic patients showing these same reactions in their
private affairs we may also throw up our hand and say "human
nature".... or we may go to work to try to help the person in trouble
to grow up over again more successfully than his parents were able to
do... (pages 5-6)

"Man's freedom to observe and to think freely... has been destroyed
or crippled by local certainties, by gods of local moralities, of
local loyalty, of personal salvation... frequently masquerading as
love... (page 8)

"The re-interpretation and eventually eradication of the concept of
right and wrong which has been the basis of child training... these
are the belated objectives of practically all effective psychotherapy.

"If the race is to be freed from its crippling burden of good and
evil, it must be psychiatrists who take the original responsibility.
... (page 9)

"Can such a program of re-education or of a new kind of education be
charted?"[8] "Re-education" is key to the preparation of human
resources for the "sustainable communities" outlined by the
President's Council on Sustainable Development.[9] Everyone must
embrace the beliefs and values needed for global unity and compliance
with the national-international management described in its report,
Sustainable America.

The attitudinal and behavioral changes Dr. Chisholm recommends have
become the primary goals of UNESCO's program for "lifelong learning",
which is being implemented in our American schools through Goals 2000.
To finish the transformation according to the blueprint for Total
Quality Management, every human resource must be assessed, monitored,
and re-educated when found non-compliant. The rate of change must be
measured. A reliable personal identifier is essential to an
efficient, standardized, and inclusive TQM monitoring system.

The national guidelines for mental health go far beyond the
traditional meaning of mental illness. Through the American Cancer
Society, our Department of Health and Human Services provides national
health standards that call for the same politically correct attitudes
and group thinking students must learn before they can earn their work
certificates and win entrance to college and good jobs.[9]

A National ID. Compliance with the new standards will be
rewarded,[11] and the proposed National ID cards will show who
conforms. The two alarming proposals -- a "unique identifier" and a
National ID -- seem made for each other.

U.S. Congressman Ron Paul saw the danger. On September 18, 1998, he
sent an urgent warning to his colleagues, asking that "language
forbidding the expenditure of funds to implement either Section 656 of
the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of
1996 and Section 1173 (b) of the Social Security Act... be included
in any omnibus budget considered by Congress this year." Then he
summarized the threat to American freedom:

"Unless Congress acts to stop this scheme, no American will be able to
get a job; open a bank account; apply for Social Security or Medicare;
exercise their Second Amendment rights; or even take an airplane
flight unless they produce their federally-approved state drivers'
license..."

"These provisions represents a major power-grab by the federal
government and a major threat to liberty. As the law stands now, the
federal government will have the ability to inappropriately monitor
the movements and transactions of every citizen. History shows that
when government gains the power to monitor the actions of the people,
it eventually uses that power to impose totalitarian controls on them.

"The Clinton administration has even come out in favor of allowing law
enforcement officials access to health care information, in complete
disregard of the fifth amendment...

"Some claim that the problems can be fixed by passing "privacy
protection" legislation. However, legislative attempts to protect the
privacy of information collected by, or at the command, of government
officials are likely to be ineffective at protecting citizens from the
prying eyes of government officials.

"...the only effective way to protect privacy is to forbid the
government from forcing citizens to accept a national identifier.
Persecution. Surveillance is nothing new. The twentieth century
created some effective ways of identifying and monitoring citizens,
especially those who might resist a new ideology. Look at the first
three decades of the Soviet Union. Its pioneering strategies for
molding the minds of its people, monitoring compliance, and punishing
non-compliance modeled government control to other totalitarian
regimes around the world. Soon China, North Korea, and other
Communist nations followed suit.

So did Nazi Germany. According to a display in the Holocaust Museum
in Washington DC, "the Gestapo gathered much of its information from
private citizens.. even children were taught to report on their
parents. The Gestapo's main sources, however, were Nazi party
officials and SS men who constantly monitored the activities of all
citizens."

What surprises me is the reluctance of Americans to believe that such
control over human minds could transform life in the USA as well as
the rest of the world.

When it does, there will be no place to hide -- other than in Jesus
Christ. But that's no small promise. The Lord -- the mighty King of
heaven and earth -- has promised to be our Shepherd, our Provider, our
Peace, and our Hiding Place. David knew it well, therefore he could
sing with joyful confidence:

"The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD
is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? ...Though an
army may encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; Though war should
rise against me, in this I will be confident... For in the time of
trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; In the secret place of His
tabernacle He shall hide me... Therefore... I will sing, yes, I will
sing praises to the LORD." Psalm 27:1-6

ENDNOTES 1. Sheryl Gay Stolberg, "Health Identifier for all Americans
Runs into Hurdles," The New York Times, 20 July 1998.
2. "Legislation adopted to 'provide certain safeguards for an individual
against an invasion of privacy.' The law says the government may not
maintain secret databanks, and mandates that all information the
government collects about Americans be kept confidential. Under the
legislation, people have the right to know about records pertaining to
them, and they must be told who else sees them and how they're used.
Without a written consent an agency is prohibited from sharing an
individual's record s with anyone else and from using them for a
secondary purpose." The Sale of Privacy, p. 125.
3. Rothfeeder, p. 126.
4. Ibid., 129-130.
5. Section 1173 (b) of the Social Security Act.
6. Sheryl Gay Stolberg, "Health Identifier for all Americans
Runs into Hurdles," The New York Times, 20 July 1998
7. Ibid.
8. Visit the website for the Department of Health and Human Services,
then find "The National Health Education Standards" and read the
definition for "Health Literacy." <www.cancer.org/cshe/csheintr.html>
Each item refers to thinking skills needed for compliance with the
consensus process and to mental preparation for the new sustainable
communities. (See "Local Agenda 21" and "Character Training for
Global Citizenship")
9. College and better jobs will be reserved for those who qualify for
the various certificates based on conformity to politically correct
attitudes, values, and group thinking. Non-conformists who cling to
biblical values and individual thinking will fail the test for mental health.
They must be remediated, and their permanent personal data file will
describe their problem attitudes: uncooperative, intolerant, independent....