Privacy Conservatives say they want a small federal government. But on their watch government has grown bigger and more invasive.

President Bush and conservatives in Congress have already given the federal government unprecedented powers to invade your privacy. But they’re not done yet. If they get their way, the federal government will be able to:

Go through your stuff in secret. Parts of the Patriot Act allow FBI agents to search your home, rifle through your library files and hack into your personal computer. The agents don’t have to tell you that you’ve been searched, they don’t need a warrant, and they don’t even have to prove to a judge that there’s sufficient evidence to justify a search.

Interfere with private medical decisions. Conservatives want to make women’s decisions for them on issues like contraception and abortion. They want to place restrictions on abortion that could endanger women’s health and take away their power over their own bodies. And they are preventing safe new drugs like the Plan B “morning after” pill from being available without a doctor’s prescription, even though increased availability could prevent as many as 1.7 million unwanted pregnancies every year – all while throwing money at scientifically inaccurate “abstinence-only” programs that are proven failures at reducing teen pregnancies or the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

Meddle in family affairs. We all remember the Terri Schiavo case, a heart-wrenching but private family tragedy that should have been private. But conservatives in Congress didn’t see it that way. They drafted a law permitting the federal government to intervene and President Bush hopped a midnight flight back to Washington to sign it. When judges ruled again and again that the federal government had no business meddling in the case, Rep. Tom DeLay reverted to threats, saying, "the time will come for the men responsible for this [the judges] to answer for their behavior."

Tell you who to marry. In conservatives’ America , everyone has an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – unless you’re gay. If you’re gay, you shouldn’t be allowed to marry the person you choose and get basic benefits that come with marriage, like the ability to visit your loved one in the hospital. Conservatives are so intolerant that they want to write this belief into law. In 2004 they failed to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would have prevented states from allowing gays and lesbians to marry. But if they get their way, they’ll try again.

Prevent scientists from pursuing life-saving research. Embryonic stem cell research has the potential to save thousands of lives and improve thousands more. Scientists all over the world are making major advances in this important new field. Even Senate Majority leader Bill Frist now supports it. But because of the objections of a small but vocal minority of hard-line conservatives, Bush is using the federal government to place crippling limits on scientists’ ability to conduct research in this field.

Make Americans more vulnerable to identity theft. In 2004, President Bush signed a law that was supposed to protect us against identity theft. It hasn’t. Instead, the number of cases of identity theft has increased dramatically over the past year. From January to August 2005 alone, there were over 63 data-security breaches that exposed nearly 50 million identities. And experts say there will be more to come.

It’s a wonder that conservatives can keep a straight face when they claim to stand for small government and personal privacy. But despite these gross hypocrisies, there are many instances when conservatives indeed want the federal government to be small and weak: when people and things that don’t have money or power need someone to stand up for them.

Conservatives want the federal government to be too small and weak to care for our most vulnerable citizens. They’ve slashed funding for programs that have helped millions of people lift themselves out of poverty, like food stamps, Head Start, Section 8 housing, and Medicare and Medicaid. They say this is fiscal discipline. But the government is strapped for revenue because of their tax giveaway to the ultra-rich, not because of successful anti-poverty programs. What’s really happening is that in the name of small government, they’re cutting away help from those who need it most and giving handouts to those who need them least.

Conservatives want a government that’s too small and weak to protect the environment. That’s why they’ve rolled back decades of environmental protections like the Clean Air Act, ignored global warming and left our national parks badly underfunded and understaffed. Meanwhile, they’re pushing to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, open up new areas to logging and let snowmobiles and ATVs into Yellowstone Park and other national treasures.

Conservatives want a government that’s too small and weak to stand up for American workers and small businesspeople in the face of big corporations. That’s why they attack workers’ right to organize, do nothing as small businesses are buried by the skyrocketing costs of gas and health care, and stand on the sidelines as corporations exploit tax loopholes to ship American jobs and profits overseas. Meanwhile, they hand out no-bid contracts to Halliburton, broker sweetheart deals with friendly oil companies and pass drug benefits that guarantee inflated prices and huge windfalls for pharmaceutical companies.

A government that’s too small to stand up for anyone without money or power, but big enough to invade your privacy and tell you how to live your life. That’s the wrong way.

We can do better.

 
Additional Resources
 

Organizations and Websites

Check out the Center for American Progress’ own:

• P.J. Crowley, who with a panel of other experts explains how we can both defend our homeland and keep our society free and open
  


• Lois Uttley, on the politics of the embryo
  


• Melody Barnes, on how vacancies on the Supreme Court are putting a woman’s right to choose in danger
  

• NARAL Pro-Choice America
  


• Students for Choice
  


• Choice USA
  

• Here’s a good summary of their fight for GLBT rights, which dates all the way back to 1940
  


• News on the now-dead Federal Marriage Amendment and ways to keep it from being revived
  

The Human Rights Campaign does fantastic work fighting for GLBT rights and has lots of ways to get involved.

Speaking of the FMA, it’s worth taking a minute to revisit one of the many low points we’ve hit as a society under the Bush administration, not to mention a glaring example of the hypocrisy of conservatives who claim to believe that government should stay out of people’s private lives:

• Here’s the President of the United States advocating that we go out of our way to write discrimination back into our Constitution, after so many years have been spent and so many people have died to write it out
  


• Here’s the House resolution itself
  

If that’s small government, Campus Progress is Bob Saget. (and by extension, God)

Another great resource and place to find ways to get involved is People for the American Way and their youth division, Young People For.

• Here’s PFAW marking the recent 40th anniversary of Griswold v. Connecticut, the case that enshrined the right to privacy as the law of the land by striking down a Connecticut law forbidding married couples from using contraception.
  

 
Books

The War on Our Freedoms, a recent release by the estimable Century Foundation, is a comprehensive set of essays warning Americans to keep their eye on the line between wanting to be safe and wanting to be free. Featuring contributions from by luminaries like Alan Brinkley, Kathleen Sullivan and E.J. Dionne, it covers just about everything and is definitely a must-read.