The Hightower Lowdown

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W's Ironic Democracy Policy

When the Bush Gang got caught supporting the failed military overthrow of Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected president of Venezuela, an administration spokesman was asked if Bush now recognized that Chavez is that country's legitimate president. "Legitimacy is something that is conferred not just by a majority of the voters," spake the spokesman smugly. Ironic, since Bush himself failed to win a majority of votes in his election.

Compounding the irony, a week after Chavez regained power Bush publicly lectured him on the need to preserve democracy in Venezuela. This is doubly ironic because the Bush administration has been aggressively funneling your and my tax dollars into a political effort to undermine Chavez's presidency, either by impeaching him or defeating him. What is a megapower like the U.S. doing meddling in the internal politics of a sovereign democracy?

Yet, something called the National Endowment for Democracy is spending nearly a million of our tax dollars to finance Venezuelan opposition to Chavez. More than half of this money is being channeled through the international arms of our own Republican and Democratic Parties.

First, who knew that our tax dollars are being given to the two big parties to finance their own foreign adventures? Second, imagine the shrieks of outrage from the White House if Chavez decided to "promote democracy" in the U.S. by sending a million bucks to Bush's opponents.

Bush loves democracy ... unless it produces people he doesn't like. Ironic, huh?

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Corporate Snooping

You've heard of the Little Shop of Horrors, but now comes the Little Boutique of Retail Ethnography.

"Retail ethnography" is a bit of corporate gobbledygook that essentially means spying, prying, snooping, and generally intruding into the private lives of us consumers. It sprang from the honest concept of market research --consumer surveys and such -- but now, this research has gotten sneakier and darker.

Instead of being aboveboard with shoppers, retail ethnography is the underhanded art of surveillance, using all of the latest technological gadgetry to monitor shoppers clandestinely. Hidden video cameras and microphones are computerized to "track" individual customers as they move through a store, identifying them by their body temperature and mapping their movements by passing them from camera to camera. If a customer lingers over a product, the cameras zoom in to record facial expressions.

The latest advance in the "intrusion explosion," as columnist William Safire has dubbed it, is a recently opened Minneapolis boutique called Once Famous. Stephanie Simon of the Los Angeles Times reports that this inviting shop, filled with artsy, upscale home furnishings is really not in the business of selling ... but of spying. It's a front, set up by Omnicom Group Inc. -- a global advertising giant.

Once Famous looks like a real store with clerks selling products to customers. But it's really a surveillance lab that's totally wired so analysts can watch the shoppers from a hidden control room. Manufacturers pay a fee to put a product in the store, then watch the video of customer reactions to the product. Most shoppers have no idea that their every movement is being recorded, analyzed ... and sold.

Sadly, under current law, this commercialized invasion of our privacy is legal. To change these laws, contact Privacy Rights Clearinghouse at www.privacyrights.org.

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Hidden Court, Hidden Enemies

Woody Guthrie once wrote about the two levels of thieves in our society: "Some'll rob you with a six gun, and some with a fountain pen."

It's the fountain-penners who are out to steal our democracy from us today. These are not outlaws, but powerful people deep inside the law, our own officials who are using terrorism as their excuse to shred our First Amendment rights. One of their fountain-pen operations is a little-known, governmental body called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Operating in absolute secrecy, FISC is where the FBI goes to get an OK to spy on people in this country who are believed to be operating on behalf of a foreign power.

Believed by whom? By the authorities -- no one else is present when the federal agents get the court's permission to spy, and FISC is notoriously quick to put its fountain pen to the approval papers. In a recent analysis of 934 formal applications to spy, this court approved all of them.

Now comes the USA Patriot Act -- so ugly that it would cause all the real Patriots of 1776 to gag. Slam-bammed through Congress last year by George W. and his authoritarian sidekick John Ashcroft, this thing is riddled with anti-democratic provisions. For example, it empowers the FBI to force libraries and bookstores to cough up the borrowing and buying records of any of us the feds decide to go after in one of their sweeping terrorist investigations.

Who's a terrorist? Under Ashcroft's new law, anyone whose acts "appear to be intended to ... influence the policy of government by intimidation," is defined as a terrorist. Appears to be? And who decides if this vague and sweeping language applies to a particular person targeted by the FBI? The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

The presiding judge of FISC has said that his secret court is one of the most important that we have "as we combat our hidden enemies." In a democracy, our real enemy is a hidden court looking for "hidden enemies."

Jim Hightower is a speaker and author. To subscribe to his monthly newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown, call toll free 866/271-4900. To order his books or schedule him for a speech, visit www.jimhightower.com.