News Release

October 16, 2001

Surveillance powers already far-reaching, alarming, study says
Without expanded powers, government already has access to information on every American

WASHINGTON—Congress is poised to expand law enforcement's surveillance powers, but a new Cato Institute study shows that current powers are already ominously extensive.

In "Watching You: Systematic Federal Surveillance of Ordinary Americans," attorney and Boise State University economics professor Charlotte Twight explains in detail how the federal government presently maintains databases on every citizen's financial, medical, employment, and education records.

"These databases, linked by individuals' Social Security numbers, now empower the federal government to obtain an astonishingly detailed portrait of any person in America," Twight says, "including the checks he writes, the types of causes he supports, and even what he says 'privately' to his doctor."

The study focuses on data-collection programs that share one defining characteristic: They compel the production, retention, and dissemination of personal information about every American citizen. These programs have been enacted in the name of "reducing fraud" or "promoting government efficiency," Twight says. And according to her, government has made the cost of avoiding participation in their databases too high (e.g. not qualifying for tax deductions without acquiring a Social Security number for claimed dependents—even for those under one year of age.)

According to Twight, businesses and state governments are similarly compelled to provide the federal government with extensive information on their employees and citizens. The federal government has calculated the cost of the information collection burden imposed on private citizens by its department and agencies at over seven billion hours a year.

"That is the equivalent of forcing over three and a half million private individuals to work full time at uncompensated labor for the entire year just to gather the data that the federal government demands," writes Twight.

"Watching You: Systematic Federal Surveillance of Ordinary Americans"