Yep, dire predictions have come true in some cases, and in some cases they've been fears on the Right, which they've now inexplicably forgotten in their self-terrorized state of mind.

Take "internal passports", once a guaranteed hot-button among the Right. Now we have a law mandating a uniform national driver's license, which, except for being issued by the states individually, in every way amounts to an internal passport. Try to travel without one, and see how much freedom of travel and association we enjoy nowadays.

Remember fevered predictions that we'd have bar codes tatooed on our foreheads? Who needs 'em, now that the government has mandated RFID tracking chips in passports. They'll be showing up in the uniform national driver's licenses in a few short years, mark my words. Tracking chips in official documents, tracking chips in commercial documents such as credit and ATM cards, tracking chips on merchandise in the stores, GPS in cell phones and automobiles, surveillance cameras blanketing every public area...where's the RightWing outrage now, when it's all for our own good because the of the eternal war on terror?

It's nifty that GM's OnStar system can unlock your car doors anywhere in North America, and track your car if it's stolen. Not so nifty that they can track you and lock you into your car if a government agent orders it.

And how about the power of integrating databases to enhance Big Brother's surveillance and control? Total Information Awareness didn't go away, it just went underground, yet a few hints have leaked out that it's alive and well. The Ministry of Homeland Security buys commercial databases, and buys access to credit reporting agencies, and puts all the pieces together with their own databases, to build chillingly detailed dossiers on all of us. What makes it even creepier is that it happens automatically now, in the machines. We're not even important enough for a person to take the time to dig into our lives...until a damn computer points the finger of suspicion. Big Brother's become cold, impersonal, and mechanical.

And the Right thinks it's a good thing. Lo, how the Righties have fallen.

You know, not all conspiracies arise from conscious intent. The New Big Brother probably wasn't designed by anybody in particular. Rather, it's arising spontaneously from our fears and the willingness of authoritarians to capitalize on our fear for shortterm political advantage. Some of them might even be appalled if they were to think through the consequences, but such self-examination is rare among those who lust for power. The New Big Brother is a dynamic, a current of fear joining up with the current of powerlust. It's something that could come to fruition by default if we don't pay attention and just allow it to happen.

The slogan "eternal vigilance is the watchword of liberty" has been abandoned by the Right, and they've replaced the proper definition of the vigilance we should exercize over our government, with Big Brother's definition of vigilance as the unblinking eye watching our every move. But that slogan remains fundamentally true in its original sense, and it's up to the rest of us to pick up the fallen banner of proper vigilance.