"Smile, you’re on virtual candid camera. If the Pentagon has its way, every American — from the Nebraskan farmer to the Wall Street banker — will find themselves under the accusatory cyberstare of an all-powerful national security apparatus." Those were the words of Laura W. Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Union Washington National Office as the federal government prepared to okay the massive Homeland Security Act. The Senate approved the sweeping legislation on Nov. 19, a week after the House, and the bill is expected to be on the president’s desk by the end of November. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) called the Act the most far-reaching legislation he has seen in his 50 years in Washington. The ACLU, Byrd and conservative New York Times columnist William Safire were among the few warning the country about what might follow. In a Nov. 14 column titled "You Are a Suspect," Safire wrote: "Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend — all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as ‘a virtual, centralized grand database.’" The plan includes a project named Total Information Awareness. It calls for the world’s most expansive electronic surveillance system to be run by the Information Awareness Office, which could monitor everyone in the name of the war on terror. Search warrants will not be needed. Heading the project is former National Security Adviser Adm. John Poindexter, who may be best known for being convicted of five felonies for lying to Congress and destroying thousands of government documents in the Iran-Contra Affair. According to critics, the Homeland Security Act goes much further than creating an electronic Big Brother. Says Byrd, "It is a compromise of our personal liberties. It is a compromise of the privacy rights of our people. It is a compromise of the checks and balances. It is a compromise of the separation of powers. It is a compromise of the American people’s right to know." Under the language approved by the House, the Homeland Security Act: * Represents the largest reorganization of the government in 50 years, consolidating 22 agencies and more than 170,000 government workers under the power of the White House; * Strips civil service protections from these employees by allowing the White House to summarily fire or transfer anyone in the Homeland Security Department; * Empowers the president to secretly reallocate funds within the department, usurping Congress’ constitutional power to budget funds; * Exempts the department from the Freedom of Information Act including information that private companies provide the government. (The Albany Times Union notes that the following scenario could occur: A company that knowingly violated pollution laws could hide its wrongdoing, and escape lawsuits, simply by voluntarily providing the information to the government. The information would then become classified barring whistleblowers from disclosing anything.) In addition, according to the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, a section of the bill titled "Administration of Counter Measures Against Smallpox" would allow the government to administer "forced immunizations, detainment and quarantines." In Congressional testimony in September, Byrd noted, "The President has proclaimed that we are entering a ‘new era,’ one that will resemble the Cold War in its concerns for national security. His proposal marks a disturbing start for this era and I am afraid may be a sign of things to come. The cold war began with an iron curtain descending over Europe. Under this bill, the war on terror may have begun with an iron curtain descending around our government."