DPS BID FOR 'BIG BROTHER' EYES BREACHES CIVIL LIBERTIES

Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw recently
asked state lawmakers to install license-plate-reader cameras on Texas
roadways and to allow stationery roadblocks to stop motorists so DPS
could see their drivers' licenses and proof of insurance.

McCraw wrapped these intrusive proposals in a generalized assertion of
growing drug trafficking and violence during a state Senate
Transportation and Homeland Security Committee meeting. He wants
license-plate readers mounted on highway signs and in DPS cars,
claiming they would help track stolen vehicles, which gangs and drug
cartels often use to smuggle drugs. He told senators that drug cartels
take billions of dollars worth of U.S. drug sales back to Mexico, and
DPS must expand its focus beyond the border to "crime corridors."

This all sounds good at first blush, of course; but what is the price
to our civil liberties? The government already has gathered enough
information on its computers about us, without having to know where we
are going to and coming from on the state's roads. This is a startling
proposal in light of Gov. Rick Perry's high-profile campaign to keep
government out of the lives of Texans and off our backs.

Every time the government wants to do something that gives it more
power over us, it tells us it's for our safety or to protect us from
terrorism and crime. We too often just go along, without considering
the loss to our civil liberty and privacy.

We should be able to travel to visit friends and relatives without the
government knowing it or maybe even suspecting that we are doing
something wrong because we are making an unusually long holiday or
vacation trip.

And, if a DPS officer suspects something, then we're pulled over for
questioning. This raises the prospect of illegal profiling, but
covered up by reliance on roadblocks or a car license as a pretext to
stop someone. There are already enough complaints about DPS profiling
motorists as it is without making the situation worse.

We need to ask DPS the hard question of really proving necessity
before we allow it, or any police agency, to trump our personal
freedom and privacy. How many times since 9/11 have we heard
government say it needs more power to fight terrorism and crime? The
truth of the matter is that government has plenty of power without
aggrandizing more. We must hold government accountable when it yells
"wolf" and demand proof. We have to keep in mind Ben Franklin's wise
counsel, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a
little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

DPS is doing a good job now of enforcing the law; and, absent some
real emergency, not a hypothetical one, there is absolutely no need
for it to become more intrusive and invade the privacy and
constitutional rights of the people of Texas.

This also is an absurd time to talk about a huge outlay of public
funds for DPS' surveillance scheme. Texas has an enormous budget
deficit crisis. This, in the face of a near-the-bottom educational
system and woefully underpaid teachers, a safety net of social
services barely held together by frayed rope and a shameful medical
delivery system.

We don't need and cannot afford DPS' "Big Brother" eyes watching our
every move on the state's roads.