Canada Globe&Mail -- Uncle Sam and Big Brother

"It's the most extensive surveillance program in history," said Gabe Rottman, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union, which is trying to derail the plan. "It's unprecedented. . . . Anything you want to know about anybody, you will find out.

A decade ago, Adm. Poindexter was convicted of five felony counts for lying to Congress under president Ronald Reagan during the White House's Iran-contra scandal, in which the admiral secretly sold missiles to Iran and used the profits to fund Nicaragua's contra rebels. The former national security adviser was sentenced to six months in jail for the illegal operation, though he was acquitted after a higher court ruled he was protected by an immunity deal in return for testifying.

"In some ways, Poindexter is the perfect Orwellian figure for the perfect Orwellian project," said Jonathan Turley, a constitutional-law expert at George Washington University.

"As a man convicted of falsifying and destroying information, he will now be put in charge of gathering information on every citizen. What is most astonishing is the utter lack of public debate over this project."

Since the 1970s, the United States has created dozens of laws aimed at protecting citizens from spying by government agencies.

Since Sept. 11, however, the White House has pushed through the Homeland Security and U.S. Patriot acts, sweeping laws that are challenging those privacy protections.

"As of today, the Attorney-General can suspend the ordinary requirements of the Fourth Amendment in order to listen in on phone calls, read e-mails and conduct secret searches of Americans' homes and offices," ACLU spokeswoman Ann Beeson

"This could change the presumption of innocence in the United States," Mr. Hoofnagle said.

When people are scared they trade liberty for security. They end up losing both.