The government has spied on protesters and churches; who is next?

OPINION:

If you give the government an inch, it will always take a mile. This is how the slippery slope to all-out persecution starts.

This particular slippery slope has to do with the government’s use of geofence technology, which uses cellphone location data to identify people who are in a particular area at any given time.

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First, police began using geofence warrants to carry out dragnet sweeps of individuals near a crime scene.

Then the FBI used geofence warrants to identify individuals who were in the vicinity of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

It wasn’t long before government officials in California used cellphone and geofence data to track the number and movements of churchgoers on church grounds during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

If we’ve already reached the point where people praying and gathering on church grounds merits this level of government scrutiny and sanctions, we’re not too far from free-falling into a total surveillance state.

Dragnet geofence surveillance sweeps can and eventually will be used to target as a suspect every person in any given place at any given time and sweep them up into a never-ending virtual lineup in the hopes of matching a criminal to every crime.

There really can be no overstating the danger.

The government’s efforts to round up those who took part in the Jan. 6 Capitol protests provided a glimpse of exactly how vulnerable we all are to the menace of a surveillance state that aspires to a God-like awareness of our lives.

Relying on selfies, social media posts, location data, geotagged photos, facial recognition, surveillance cameras and crowdsourcing, government agents compiled a massive data trove on anyone and everyone who may have been in the vicinity of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Included in that data roundup were individuals who may have had nothing to do with the protests but whose cellphone location data identified them as being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

You didn’t even have to be involved in the Capitol protests to qualify for a visit from the FBI: investigators reportedly tracked — and questioned — anyone whose cellphones connected to wi-fi or pinged cellphone towers near the Capitol.

The massive amount of surveillance data available to the government is staggering.

As investigative journalists Charlie Warzel and Stuart A. Thompson explain, “This [surveillance] data … provide[s] an intimate record of people whether they were visiting drug treatment centers, strip clubs, casinos, abortion clinics or places of worship.”

In such a surveillance ecosystem, we’re all suspects and databits to be tracked, catalogued and targeted.

Forget about being innocent until proven guilty.

Although the Constitution requires the government to provide solid proof of criminal activity before it can deprive a citizen of life or liberty, the government has turned that fundamental assurance of due process on its head.

Now, thanks to the digital trails and digital footprints we all leave behind, you start off guilty and have to prove your innocence.

Saint or sinner, it doesn’t matter because we’re all being swept up into a massive digital data dragnet that does not distinguish between those who are innocent of wrongdoing, suspects, or criminals.

Case in point: Consider what happened to Calvary Chapel during COVID-19.

Government officials in Santa Clara County, California, issued a shelter-in-place order in March 2020, dictating whom residents could see, where they could go, what they could do, and under what circumstances.

After imposing even harsher restrictions on churches, Santa Clara officials reportedly used geofence surveillance technology to monitor the concentrations of congregants at Calvary Chapel during the COVID-19 lockdowns, using their findings to justify levying nearly $3 million in public health fines against the church for violating the county’s strict pandemic restrictions.

At a minimum, the use of geofence surveillance to monitor church attendees constitutes an egregious violation of the churchgoers’ Fourth Amendment rights and an attempt to undermine protected First Amendment activities relating to the freedom of speech, the free exercise of religion, and the right of the people peaceably to assemble.

Still, the government’s use of geofence surveillance goes way beyond its impact on church members and anyone in the vicinity of the Jan. 6 protests.

The ramifications for all of us are far-reaching.

Mass surveillance has been shown to chill lawful First Amendment activities, and historically has been used to stifle dissent, persecute activists, and harass marginalized communities.

The chilling effects of pervasive surveillance give rise to a constant, justifiable fear in even the most compliant, law-abiding citizen.

Of course, that’s the point.

The government wants us muzzled, complacent and compliant.

So far, it’s working.

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Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His latest books,“The Erik Blair Diaries” and “Battlefield America: The War on the American People,” are available at www.amazon.com. Mr. Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the executive director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.