We Can’t Afford This VICTORY

National Consumer Coalition's Privacy Group has issued its lastest Privacy Villain of the Week. The current offender is John Ashcroft:

Attorney General John Ashcroft has kicked off a road show, a 10-day, 20-stop tour to bolster flagging support for the USA PATRIOT Act and promote an as-yet unintroduced piece of legislation called the VICTORY Act. The NCC Privacy Group has recently obtained a draft copy of the VICTORY legislation, and it has some chilling implications for consumer privacy.

The full name of the VICTORY Act is the "Vital Interdiction of Criminal Terrorist Organizations Act of 2003," and like the "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorists" (USA PATRIOT) Act, it is a grab bag of enhanced police-state powers only tangentially related to its bombastic and acronymic title. It is Title V of the VICTORY Act that has the most direct effects on consumer privacy.

This mad power grab cannot go unopposed. I sincerely hope that the recent bit of spine that the House of Representatives showed in voting to repeal key provisions of the PATRIOT Act will still be present when this Big Brother legislation reaches the legislature. I don't have high hopes, however. Next year is an election year, and no one wants to be labeled as supporting terrorism for voting against the police state.