Posted on 06/16/2013 6:54:20 AM PDT by newheart
That's the law...
Setting rhetoric aside for a moment, the SCOTUS has ruled that there is a fundamental right to privacy so that women may terminate a pregnancy, as they wish; however, another branch of government has determined there is no such ‘categorical imperative’ regarding privacy protecting Americans’ communications.
Back to the argument, it may be that we were at war with Eastasia recently, but are now apparently not, however, the WOT continues and it is essential to national security that our intelligence agencies are able to review your e-mails to Aunt Doris about the lack of rain in Nebraska.
There it is. If as Zero says the bad guys are finished, then they don’t have a leg to stand on.
>>What is the problem with the “I have nothing to hide, who cares?” argument? (Or, if you prefer, you are most welcome to defend that position.) <<
A bit more now I have time.
How about:
* If you never say anything bad, who cares about the 1st Amendment?
* If the only reason to own a gun is self-protection, why not limit the 2nd amendment to government-defined firearms?
* If you don’t/won’t do anything wrong, who cares about the 5th Amendment?
* If the only thing that matters in the Constitution is the Supremacy Clause, who cares about the 9th and 10th Amendments?
These things are our RIGHTS. Their substance nor their rationale should never be an issue: those were debated when the USC and BOR were adopted.
The only issue now is not letting them continue to be stolen.
Honestly it is about trust. Birth certificates, college transcripts, right on up to Benghazi, IRS, Islamic sensitivity/Boston, Ft. Hood, Fast and Furious, Obamacare lies, the list is never ending. There has not been one thing these anti Americans have done to earn my trust and there never will be. Obama declared war on half the population of this country and now he wants to see my personal records? You have o be kidding me.
>>> What is the problem with the “I have nothing to hide, who cares?” argument?
The problem with this is that it signifies a person who implicitly trusts the government in all things.
I would even go as far to say that such a person who holds this view trusts government over any belief in God.
A Godless (immoral) society is simply incapable of self rule.
We are proving that today.
Privacy against government surveillance is a way of saying that private conduct is no business of government, unless there is a sound and particularized basis for the government to suspect unlawful activity. It is not about whether one has something to hide, it is about limiting the power of government to what it strictly necessary, a principle that is central to our constitution and form of government.
1a.) You mean there's nothing wrong with Peeping Toms?
2a) Luke was an Apostle of Jesus Christ; the NSA are NOT.
It is Fundamentally wrong in the classic American tradition. I have done nothing wrong so “they” have no right to spy on me. If I happen to have some statistical association with a crime I should be charged maybe but I should be considered INNOCENT until proven guilty.
2. What is the problem with the “I have nothing to hide, who cares?” argument? Can I snoop around your house and try to make something up on you. We have a right to expect privacy form the “King”. Why is obama hiding his records? He has a right to privacy but a duty to show what is required by law and tradition for public officers.
How comfortable would you be with an individual deciding to release to the world whether particular individuals (including you) have HIV, were treated for STDs, have had abortions, and details of any treatment for drug and alcohol abuse, or any psychiatric treatment? And how comfortable are you with Obama mandating electronic record keeping that makes it vastly easier to grab and disseminate this information?
On another thread, I posed the threat in Mexico, how the Zeta´s have high priority to kidnap I.T. people, computers nerds-geeks who know how to load software, follow cell phone signals. The entire Mexican populations is being watched not by their gov´t but by the Zeta´s, then have access to bank accounts, moving of large sums of money. My American friend got cell phone calls as he headed to the airport, they knew exactly what street corner he was one, and when he walked into the airport. It´s very sobering to know how much data information the organized criminals have access to. I would WANT the NSA people to watch this and keep them surpressed.
It is wrong to assume that you would get in trouble with the government only if you are doing something wrong. 4th amendment aside, what you need to worry about is that the government will catch you doing something right that they do not approve of. Invasion of privacy is the tool of a totalitarian state.
(1) Many things that are perfectly legal can be embarrassing. Many other things that are neither embarrassing nor illegal might offend someone in power.
(2) If you give people in government too much power, they will use that power to control and/or ruin you. For example, some bureaucrat likes your house, business, some contract opportunity, your wife, your daughter, etc. Or they do not like some opinion you hold, do not like you, or just plain like destroying people. If they have full access to every aspect or even just many aspects of your life, and they have the power of government behind them, they can ruin you or threaten to ruin you to get what they want.
Finally, there are so many laws now that just about every one of us can be construed to violate at lease a few laws from time to time.
And something else. When Barack Obama thinks it is relevant to the American people WHERE HE WAS AND WHAT HE WAS DOING when four Americans were murdered in Benghazi, only then will I consider who I call is relevant. FUBO
That is one of my favorite scriptures, as important as “do unto others...”
The #1 problem I have with the Left is that they seek to usurp the very power of God, in every way they can. (Guess who that sounds like?)
This is just one more way.
“Inquiring minds want to know”
Who are the inquiring minds? The NSA? Why don’t you give us or the “inquiring minds” your OWN opinion? Spell it out and get FReeper comments on your opinion.
If your vanity was ever posted in the USSR or today in NK or even communist China, you wouldn’t get a single negative answer. You would have gotten TOTAL AGREEMENT that there is NO PROBLEM whatsoever about the dear government working to protect the PEOPLE.
Gadsden1st wrote in #2:
“What I think or say privately is none of your or anyone’s D@MN business!!”
He’s right, but would have been arrested as an anti-regime, counter-revolutionary advocate if he were living in a different country. Agreeing with Gadsden1st would earn me a cell next to his.
I agree with Gadsden1st. Last time I checked, It’s still the USSA that is fast approaching the good ol’ USSR.
Spreading fear is a very effective weapon in dictatorships. This is what’s being done to change the fabric in this country.
I have been around too many people to trust people. On the surface, some ideas seem OK. “The people have a right to know who is donating to a politician!” Well, of course! Maybe some foreigners or crooks are donating to a politician. Shouldn’t the people know that? It seems harmless enough. But what if the list of campaign contributors is used for illegal purposes? Let’s say, as an example, that all the names of contributors to a Republican candidate are collected for a Democrat database. Then, Democrats in government run the names of job applicants against this database. The interview points for government job applicants who are found on the database of Republican campaign donors suddenly drop 50 points.
“I just think that Nancy presented herself better than Steve during the interview.” Happens every day.
It’s important to look at this from two perspectives, that of “observation” and that of “surveillance”.
Observation has as its purpose to examine society looking for aberration. If aberration is detected, with permission from an outside authority, extra attention is given to the aberrant. Think of this as it was brought to the attention of the police that someone is acting strangely, so the police ask a judge for a search warrant, based on the reasonable suspicion that the aberrant behavior is criminal in character, before, during or after the fact.
Surveillance, on the other hand, is the *assumption* of aberrant behavior by everyone, or “assume guilt until proven innocent”. As such, it cannot depend on a judge to determine that individuals are suspect, because it assumes that ALL are suspect.
Surveillance is also inherently inefficient, because it has no focus, despite its technology, so it misses out on those individuals who are a threat, who without unique scrutiny are missed. Further, the technology of surveillance creates the illusion of efficiency by sheer volume, but that volume is of dross, not good intelligence.
Case in point, the new Utah facility will store immense amounts of utterly useless data. But knowing what the most popular brand of toilet paper preferred by consumers achieves nothing if you are looking for aberrant individuals. If it survives, perhaps in a thousand years it will be of interest to archaeologists.
Yes indeed, something of value might come of it eventually.
For example, Wal-Mart has the largest logistical database in the world. Florida had experienced a bad hurricane, and was expecting another, so Wal-Mart consulted its database to find out what products would be sold out, so it could bring in resupply before the fact.
Of the emergency supplies, by far at the head of the list were two stand out products: beer and strawberry Pop-Tarts(tm). This is what the public wanted, so Wal-Mart shipped in truck after truck of beer and strawberry Pop-Tarts. And they were right.
But what promise exists of a brilliantly data mined surveillance database coming up “beer and strawberry Pop-Tarts”, but with terrorists? Ironically far less than would be obtained through observation.
Wal-Mart could have saved a lot of time, effort, energy and money, by asking its store managers what products really sold before the last hurricane. They would have got the same answer, only faster, and with more confidence.
Everyone is guilty. You unwittingly break numerous laws every day. The "books" contain hundreds of thousands of laws and regulations that assume the color of law. Compliance is impossible.
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