Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

November 12, 2007

During the four decades of its existence, East Germany developed what was probably history's most comprehensive police state.

Thick and detailed files were compiled by the Stasi secret police on all of the country's residents. An estimated one-third of East German citizens were forcibly recruited to be secret police informants. The objective was to abolish privacy so as to make everyone utterly vulnerable to the whims of the ruling elite.

Some unsettling echoes of that regime were heard in recent remarks by Donald Kerr, deputy director of National Intelligence.

Speaking to Congress, Kerr insisted that Americans will have to ?take stock of what we are already willing to give up, in terms of anonymity.? Because Americans already offer private information in business transactions, Kerr maintained, we shouldn't object to government surveillance of our telephone and on-line communications.

The architects of East Germany's surveillance state would agree with Kerr, and covet the technology at his disposal.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.