Posted on 11/09/2017 6:34:33 AM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
What if the government doesn't really deliver for us? What if its failures to protect our lives, liberties and property are glaring? What if nothing changes after these failures?
What if the National Security Agency -- the federal government's domestic spying apparatus -- has convinced Congress that it needs to cut constitutional corners in order to spy on as many people in America as possible? What if Congress has bought that argument and passed a statute that put a secret court between the NSA and its appetite for all electronically transmitted data in America? What if that secret court -- called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court -- is supposed to protect personal liberty but instead has become a wall behind which the NSA hides?
What if the Constitution only permits warrants for searches and seizures that are based on probable cause of crime? What if the Constitution requires that all warrants for searches and seizures specifically describe the place to be searched or the person or thing to be seized? What if the courts have ruled that electronic surveillance constitutes a search and seizure within the meaning of the Constitution?
What if the FISC issues warrants based on a lesser standard than probable cause of crime? What if its standard is probable cause of speaking with or knowing someone who has spoken with a foreign person? What if this is such an absurd and loose standard that it violates the Constitution and ends up protecting no one except the spies who pretend to employ it?
What if the FISC is a facade? What if the NSA spies on all people all the time while hiding behind FISC-issued warrants? What if the stated purpose of spying on everyone all the time is to keep us safe from terrorist acts by trading liberty for security? What if that trade has never worked?
What if the NSA has convinced President Donald Trump and his immediate two predecessors that it needs to spy on everyone in America to keep us safe, no matter what the Constitution says? What if those three presidents have bought that argument?
What if NSA spying is really done without any warrants? What if this spying captures in real time every keystroke on every computer and hand-held device -- as well as the content of every email, text message, telephone call and fiber-optic cable transmission -- in the United States 24/7?
What if NSA computers have direct and unimpeded access to all mainframe computers of all telecoms and computer service providers in the U.S.? What if the acquisition of all this data is known in the intelligence community as bulk surveillance?
What if the Constitution is the supreme law of the land? What if the Constitution, with its requirement of warrants based on probable cause and specifically identifying targets, expressly prohibits bulk surveillance? What if bulk surveillance is not only unconstitutional but also useless because it produces information overload -- too much data to sift through in a timely manner?
What if President Trump and his immediate two predecessors have unleashed the NSA to acquire all communications data about everyone in America even though it's obvious that the NSA cannot possibly sift through it all in a timely enough manner to keep us safe?
What if the Islamic State-inspired extremist who drove a rental truck on a New York City bicycle and pedestrian path and killed eight people last week did a dry run of his killing plans the week before? What if one of his own cellphones recorded portions of the dry run? What if the NSA had that recording but did not notice it until after the attack?
What if the same killer who drove the rental truck stored 90 video clips of other Islamic State-inspired killings on a cellphone? What if the NSA had those videos but did not notice them until after the attack?
What if the same killer who drove that rental truck also stored nearly 4,000 photos of Islamic State atrocities on a cellphone and the NSA, which has had the repellant photos since the killer first stored them, did not notice them until after the attack?
What if liberty is our birthright and cannot be taken away by government without a jury trial? What if the NSA's allies in government wrongly and foolishly think that the surrender of privacy to America's 60,000 domestic spies somehow keeps us safe?
What if the genius of the Constitution -- if followed -- is not only its protection of privacy but also its requirement that the government focuses its searches and seizures on people who it has reason to suspect are engaged in criminal activity and about whom judges have ratified the evidence to support those suspicions? What if the Constitution requires the government to leave the rest of us alone?
What if the government stinks at keeping us safe but is very good at invading our privacy?
What if this bulk surveillance is about power and control and not about safety? What if the NSA has selectively leaked what it knows about some folks for political purposes? What if President Trump himself and his former national security adviser have been victims of those leaks?
What if the use of intelligence data for political purposes and not for safety is a profound danger to democracy? What if government can't keep us safe? What if we falsely think that it does keep us safe? What if that delusion makes us less safe? What if government's bulk acquisition of private data makes us less free? What if government works not for us but for itself? What do we do about it?
I’d honestly rather have the government fail to deliver on safety, because it is the only way to show why we should not have big government.
They don’t promise safety, and hardly ever deliver, but always grab every opportunity to take away our rights, crowing about our safety.
“What if the government doesn’t really deliver for us?”........
That’s a pretty broad question with a very simple answer, all you need to do is look back at history and you will see the answer. The government doesn’t “deliver”, at least not what they promise. I trust the government NOT!
How could the government assure your safety in that venue, or even just walking down the street? Maybe issue you a personal, 24x7 armed body guard and your own set of body armor? Great, now you can both get mowed down by the next whack job in a truck...
The result of any reasonable thought experiment quickly shows that the government simply can not guarantee your safety. Therefore, you, me, everyone must take responsibility for our own safety. I realize that is scary for a couple of reasons - one, it requires our snowflakes out there to actually take responsibility for something. (I know, gasp! right?) Two, we have to admit that we may make mistakes, even with our motivation for self preservation we may be unsuccessful. But we can {expletive}-sure do a better job at it than the government ever could, and without sacrificing our liberty and freedom.
We have the Second Amendment to ensure our own safety.
We The People....that’s how it begins...AND ENDS, actually...that “We” were the few original signers who meant themselves NOT we the folks....
Even then, they had to add the Bill of Rights to get it ratified...Hamilton even convinced George to finally show up in Philly they needed support so badly!
Ever notice how the BOR sounds so much like Paine?
Some even think that he may have been the actual author.
But sounds like he really influenced a lotta folks!
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“They don’t promise safety, and hardly ever deliver, . . .”
Preamble to the Constitution: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution. . . “
The preamble summarizes the “promise”.
Nobody can deliver total safety. They can take away all of your liberty and your ability to defend yourself.
Sad that so many Americans can’t see that.
Don't agree with this. That bulk surveillance is stored in a searchable database. If your name should pop up on their radar a simple query reveals everything they could ever want to know about you. Everything.
What does he mean by “if”?
Don't agree with this. That bulk surveillance is stored in a searchable database. If your name should pop up on their radar a simple query reveals everything they could ever want to know about you. Everything.
I think that what may have been meant is that it can't be acted on for prevention or immediately actionable. Yes, if stored, it would be there for prosecution or explanation of what may have happened, but, if everything is under surveillance, no one really has the time or ability to see what's happening NOW.
Yes, we know they will fail to deliver safety because they are incompetents in a system where you can’t be dismissed from your job.
They fail to deliver anything except misery.
It is becoming apparent that all this NSA spying and surveillance is being used for political purposes and not to protect us from the terrorists.
Just look at the unmasking crimes that should be getting top billing and investigations. The dirt that came be dug up through modern surveillance is more useful to our government for blackmail and other nefarious purposes. A lot of people need to be prosecuted for this.
“Ever notice how the BOR sounds so much like Paine?”
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OOOoooooPPpppppppppppppsssssssssssssss!!!!!!
Make that BOR DOI.............
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Dick Gaines aka: Gunny G @ Planet WTF!
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What if the NSA has been monitoring every (EVERY) phone in the US since Nixon?
The second amendment ensures nothing. It only defines on paper our right concerning keeping and bearing arms. Unless we the people are willing to take matters into our own hands, our safety is not guaranteed against a government willing to take our safety either piece by piece or wholesale.
The Constitution, for that matter, is just a piece of paper. What is to prevent the government from disavowing it except for the vigilance of the citizens.
I’ll give up my guns when tyranny becomes impossible.
The revolution might not have succeeded without Common Sense. Accordingly, I’m of the opinion that the first two paragraphs of Paine’s Common Sense:SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.should be taught in school.Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.
I recall one incident in high school when a teacher gave a homework assignment whose gravamen, it turned out the next day, was “We like to say ‘society' when we mean government." When I heard that, it sounded wrong - and sounded to me like the teacher was a “liberal.” But I didn’t immediately know how to rebut it. Paine certainly puts paid to that nonsense . . .
Paine’s proof that “society” and “government” are in a real sense antonyms helps explain socialism: It is natural for anyone who is cynical about society to be naive about, or even have faith in, government. Journalists are knowingly negative ("If it bleeds, it leads”) about society and, since they claim to be objective, essentially claim that negativity is objectivity. And “the conceit that negativity is objectivity” is very serviceable definition of cynicism. Thus, any journalist, or anyone who is credulous about journalism, tends to be cynical about society and therefore to be naive toward government. Cynicism toward society is thus a necessary and sufficient condition for “liberalism."
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