How does being watched rob a person of their liberty?
The principles of liberty that we have defined for generations cannot exist in an American surveillance state.
TOTAL surveillance should be conducted on every “representative”. They have lost the trust of honest citizens. They are not open, transparent and truthful. What have honest “representatives” got to hide? Unfortunately, I do not have that capability. If we the people could do that surveillance state for 5-10 years, our republic would be much improved.
Sundance and another one of his “look at me” articles. Of course we are all aware of the surveillance state. What I wanna know is who this Sundance person is. He/she should come from the shadows and stop hiding behind the pseudonym.
To start with the DoI and BoR misses two important points. The Preambles to both the Constitution and the BoR are equally essential toward a comprehensive defining purpose to include the social contract (Preamble to the Constitution) and its purpose (limited government in the Preamble to the BoR). Sadly, neither has been properly used before the SCOTUS.
Allow me to provide an example: Most people think that adherents to Islam are provided free exercise of religion under the First Amendment. Yet Islam violates completely the Preamble to the Constitution, refusing to participate in the social contract that is the Constitution itself by allowing neither equal treatment nor free exercise to those of other religions, subjugating them and the Constitution itself to the Quran, using the protections offered under the Constitution to violate it. Said adherents are therefore not participants in the social contract that is the Preamble to the Constitution and are therefore not due its legal protections.
So although I admire Sundance for his evidentiarly thoroughness, I think he's missing an important point about the legal architecture comprised by these founding documents, but then, so has been the legal community charged with protecting them.
Thanks for the thoughtful replies.
Should we not make a distinction between being watched and taking action on the basis of what is seen?
To be born among civilization and live in it peacefully requires a certain amount of mutual observation. The example of Communist China making life difficult for people indulging in “wrongthink” would not be possible without massive surveillance, but it is not the surveillance per set that robs the citizens of liberty.
I do not have a problem with live video surveillance of property for the purpose of securing the blessings. I also do not fear that if I had a publicly available video cam in my bathroom or bedroom my neighbors would spend their hours watching it and tittering over my behaviors there. They’d probably pay me to leave it turned off.
Anyway, I want to hear definitions before we move ahead on public policy. Rand Paul is good at catching “the law of unintended consequences” when knee-jerk policies are put forward.
Just because you call yourself a defender of liberty does not mean you know what the word means in the context of our founding documents. Frankly I’m not sure I do.
The texts regarding “unreasonable search,” etc. is great, but is it unreasonable for businesses to observe my buying habits in an effort to advance their own interests? The author here is concerned about actions the state would take on the basis of normal, law-abiding behavior. We all should be. Likewise, a parent should not live in fear of physical intervention for letting their child walk three blocks from home, or three miles from home.
Well these are just random thoughts on it. I am open to reasonable debate over the nature and extent of this clash between liberty and surveillance.