A New Low for Privacy in the U.S.
Bill Hahn JBSTuesday January 8, 2007
Anyone, particularly anyone living in "the West" — that is Great Britain, the United States, etc. — who thinks that they aren’t falling prey to random surveillance might as well employ a rather well-known Sopranos technique and "fuhgetaboutit!"
Follow this link to the original source: "The US Sets the Standard … in Lack of Privacy!"
In a new online exclusive, and as a follow-up to his popular and in-depth article "Living Under Surveillance" for The New American, engineer and author Wilt Alston reveals that even he didn’t think America was as bad as it actually is when it comes to trading liberty and privacy for security. But, according to Alston, a new report sheds additional light on the situation and reveals how far down the slippery slope America has fallen. The new report on surveillance around the world ranks nations with regard to the amount of effort they put into conducting surveillance on innocent citizens. Alston states that the study’s rankings are an indicator of the health of participatory government and freedom in a nation. The more pervasive the surveillance, the greater the attack on freedom. Unfortunately, as Alston notes, the report finds that the U.S., along with Great Britain and a few other nations, now has an "endemic surveillance society." In such a society freedom is much more likely to be trampled, a point not lost on America’s Founding Fathers.
(Article continues below)
Once again confirming that our Founders were indeed visionaries of freedom, Benjamin Franklin hit the nail on the head when he noted: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Franklin and his compatriots knew that a federal government was a necessary evil that needed to be limited in its scope and power to prevent it from interfering with the rights and liberties of the people. To that end, the Founding Fathers attempted to prevent the government they created from expanding beyond its purpose by binding it with the Constitution. Unfortunately, politicians enamored with the idea of power have, over time, worked to loosen the bindings the Constitution placed on the growth of federal power, with the result that the nation was turned first into a welfare state and now into aforementioned endemic surveillance society.
This transition conflicts with the 4th Amendment which specifically guards a citizen’s right against unreasonable searches and seizures. After all, what is continuous public surveillance of citizens if not an ongoing unreasonable search? Such a practice runs counter to our most basic legal assumption, that we are innocent until proven guilty. Constant surveillance, on the contrary, is predicated on the idea that at any moment any person may commit a crime, or, in other words, that each citizen carries an incipient measure of guilt that has simply not been fully manifested. Endemic surveillance, in short, assumes guilt from the first.
Nothing could be more contrary to basic American beliefs and principles. Perhaps if Americans dusted off their copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, they would learn that government’s role to protect its citizens is not to be accomplished by monitoring and gathering and compiling information on the masses. This merely leads to trampling the privacy and Constitutional rights of law abiding citizens.
Bill Hahn JBSTuesday January 8, 2007
Anyone, particularly anyone living in "the West" — that is Great Britain, the United States, etc. — who thinks that they aren’t falling prey to random surveillance might as well employ a rather well-known Sopranos technique and "fuhgetaboutit!"
Follow this link to the original source: "The US Sets the Standard … in Lack of Privacy!"
In a new online exclusive, and as a follow-up to his popular and in-depth article "Living Under Surveillance" for The New American, engineer and author Wilt Alston reveals that even he didn’t think America was as bad as it actually is when it comes to trading liberty and privacy for security. But, according to Alston, a new report sheds additional light on the situation and reveals how far down the slippery slope America has fallen. The new report on surveillance around the world ranks nations with regard to the amount of effort they put into conducting surveillance on innocent citizens. Alston states that the study’s rankings are an indicator of the health of participatory government and freedom in a nation. The more pervasive the surveillance, the greater the attack on freedom. Unfortunately, as Alston notes, the report finds that the U.S., along with Great Britain and a few other nations, now has an "endemic surveillance society." In such a society freedom is much more likely to be trampled, a point not lost on America’s Founding Fathers.
(Article continues below)
Once again confirming that our Founders were indeed visionaries of freedom, Benjamin Franklin hit the nail on the head when he noted: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Franklin and his compatriots knew that a federal government was a necessary evil that needed to be limited in its scope and power to prevent it from interfering with the rights and liberties of the people. To that end, the Founding Fathers attempted to prevent the government they created from expanding beyond its purpose by binding it with the Constitution. Unfortunately, politicians enamored with the idea of power have, over time, worked to loosen the bindings the Constitution placed on the growth of federal power, with the result that the nation was turned first into a welfare state and now into aforementioned endemic surveillance society.
This transition conflicts with the 4th Amendment which specifically guards a citizen’s right against unreasonable searches and seizures. After all, what is continuous public surveillance of citizens if not an ongoing unreasonable search? Such a practice runs counter to our most basic legal assumption, that we are innocent until proven guilty. Constant surveillance, on the contrary, is predicated on the idea that at any moment any person may commit a crime, or, in other words, that each citizen carries an incipient measure of guilt that has simply not been fully manifested. Endemic surveillance, in short, assumes guilt from the first.
Nothing could be more contrary to basic American beliefs and principles. Perhaps if Americans dusted off their copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, they would learn that government’s role to protect its citizens is not to be accomplished by monitoring and gathering and compiling information on the masses. This merely leads to trampling the privacy and Constitutional rights of law abiding citizens.
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