Posted on 05/13/2006 2:31:20 PM PDT by neverdem
For good reason, conservatives have long been suspicious of the judicially created "right to privacy." But deployed in the right circumstances, this liberty interest could be used to thwart liberal panaceas.
Despite the controversy among conservatives surrounding the issue, the Constitution does protect privacy. Most important, as a document of enumerated powers, the Constitution limited the national government's power to act. (Of course, the Supreme Court has turned the Constitution on its head, allowing Uncle Sam to do most anything not expressly restricted.) Thus, there was little authority for the federal authorities to violate people's privacy.
Moreover, the Fourth Amendment clearly limited the government's ability to snoop. The British had employed general "writs of assistance" that required no evidence of misbehavior, and the early Americans certainly didn't intend to allow their new government to do that.
Unfortunately, however, the modern, judicially created "right to privacy" seems to be all about sex. And it is being employed as a weapon to achieve ends very different than preserving individual liberty from state encroachment.
Abortion is the most obvious. But the killing of the unborn cannot be shielded behind the claim of privacy (after all, you can't normally kill people so long as it is done "privately," that is, out of public view). Nor does the question of gay marriage have anything particular to do with privacy, as traditionally understood. Yet both are advanced under this banner.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
There is a point here. Part of being conservative is believing in minding one's own business.
It is SAD and disturbing that SOOOOOO many freepers support everything that Bush does. It is all in the name of security. It is all for OUR own good. It is all blah blah blah.
Apparently we don't have NEARLY as many conservatives among us as we once thought.
Shame and scary for the future of this great nation.
I agree with your initial complaint, but the only support you offer is "blah" repeated 3 times, and the oddly sarcastic statements that we need "security" and things done "for our own good" -- which we do.
Which legal program are you referring to?
--The foreign intelligence surveillance which starts with terrorist phone numbers?
--Or the Clinton administration program begun ... 'when president Clinton signed into law the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994, after it was passed in both the House and Senate by a voice vote. That law is an act "to make clear a telecommunications carrier's duty to cooperate in the interception of communications for law enforcement purposes, and for other purposes." The act made clear that a court order isn't the only lawful way of obtaining call information, saying, "A telecommunications carrier shall ensure that any interception of communications or access to call-identifying information effected within its switching premises can be activated only in accordance with a court order or other lawful authorization."?
The law that President Clinton signed into law and that was approved by voice votes in 1994 by a Democrat-majority House and a Democrat-majority Senate not only made clear the phone companies' "duty" to cooperate, it authorized $500 million in taxpayer funds to reimburse the phone companies for equipment "enabling the government, pursuant to a court order or other lawful authorization, to access call-identifying information that is reasonably available to the carrier." Again, the law, by referring to "other lawful authorization," states clearly that a court order isn't the only form of lawful authorization possible."
Sorry,maybe just in a bad mood,but I am a little tired of those that are more comfortable with the dems social agenda claiming it to be based on the great libertarian "privacy" thing telling all of us who the REAL conservatives are.
Liberals and socialists and enemies of our country are out there defending our "rights to privacy" in a time of war when it is established in fact that our enemy is making phone calls that we need to intercept in order to defend our country.
These sham attempts to discredit our President and Commander-in-Chief are acts of treason disguised as defense of freedom. The penalty for treason is death.
Any questions?
I think they've been banned or reverted to lurking.
A few of us are still around, despite regularly getting slapped around by the kool-aid drinkers here.
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