Faux Private Interests, Part II: Privatizing the Police State

Last week I linked to a Brad Spangler post on faux-private interests, where he used this analogy to describe "private" interests that benefit from state capitalism:

...one robber (the literal apparatus of government) keeps you covered with a pistol while the second (representing State-allied corporations) just holds the bag that you have to drop your wristwatch, wallet and car keys in. To say that your interaction with the bagman was a “voluntary transaction” is an absurdity.

Now I find this (via Progressive Review): "Chertoff Wants to Set Up Non-Profit Agency to Spy on You"

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff this week floated an idea to start a nonprofit group that would collect information on private citizens, flag suspicious activity, and send names of suspicious people to his department. The idea, which Chertoff tossed out at an April 27 meeting with security-industry officials, is reminiscent of the Defense Department's now-dead Total Information Awareness program that sought to sift though heaps of foreign intelligence information to root out potential terrorist activity. According to one techie who attended the April 27 meeting, Chertoff told the group, "Maybe we can create a nonprofit and track people's activities, and an algorithm could red-flag individuals. Then, the nonprofit could give us the names."

Hey, it's too bad Hitler didn't turn the Gestapo into a private corporation, so Nazi Germany could be a good "free market" country like Pinochet's Chile.