Thursday, July 25, 2013
Government Surveillance and Personal Liberties
Thomas Jefferson believed that government is the greatest, if not the only, threat to individual iberty. He wrote : “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. This is so because those who gain positions of power tend always to extend the bounds of it. Power must always be constrained or limited else it will increase to the level that it will be despotic." Jefferson wrote : “It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also...” With this principle in mind, Jefferson declared “that a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular; and what no just government should refuse...." This week the US House of Representatives took up a bill intimately tied to personal liberties and the Bill of Rights. The result was a victory for the Obama administration as the House voted 217-205 to save funding for the National Security Agency's program to collect hundreds of millions of Americans' phone records. Unbowed and determined, the unusual coalition of left and right - libertarian-leaning conservatives, tea partiers and liberal Democrats - who led the fight against the bill said they will try to undo the NSA programs they label an unconstitutional intrusion on civil liberties. Representative Justin Amash, a 33-year-old Michigan Republican, made his intentions clear on Twitter: "We came close (205-217). If just 7 Reps had switched their votes, we would have succeeded. Thank YOU for making a difference. We fight on." And, John Conyers, the 84-year-old veteran Michigan Democrat, said the narrow margin of victory ensures that vigorous debate on the NSA programs will continue. Many members in the House take the position that "it's OK to collect all records you want just as long as you make sure you don't let it go anywhere else,'" said Conyers, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. "That is the beginning of the wrong direction in a democratic society." The breakout of tbe House vote shows how the issue cuts across party lines. Backing the NSA program were 134 Republicans and 83 Democrats. GOP House Speaker John Boehner, who typically does not vote, voted for the bill, as did House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. Rejecting Obama's last-minute appeals to save the surveillance operation were 94 Republicans and 111 Democrats. Boehner said he voted for the bill because these programs have kept America safe, but he added that Congress needed to have the debate. ~~~~~ But, dear readers, the House vote is extremely unlikely to be the final word on the worldwide debate over the US government "snooping" to defend the nation versus the privacy of Americans and many others worldwide. Michelle Bachmann, the Minnesota Republican who was a 2012 presidential candidate and who is an Intelligence Committee member, said Congress needs to deal in realities that are keeping America safe. But GOP Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, a senior member of the Judiciary Committee who helped write the USA Patriot Act, insisted "the time has come" to stop the collection of phone records that goes far beyond what he envisioned. There is congressional anger at National Intelligence Director James Clapper for making misleading statements to Congress on how much the US spies snooped on Americans. Clapper apologized to lawmakers this month after saying in March that the US does not gather data on citizens - something that has been revealed as false by the Snowden release of stolen documents showing that the NSA collects millions of phone records. Lawmakers have said they were shocked by the scope of the two programs - one to collect records of hundreds of millions of calls and the other allowing NSA to sweep up Internet usage data from around the world that goes through nine major US-based providers. Proponents argue that the surveillance operations have been successful in thwarting at least 50 terror plots across 20 countries, including 10 to 12 directed at the United States. ~~~~~ The issue of any government spying on its citizens, and those of other sovereign nations, in operations that are in reality a vast scooping up and storing of everything that passes through US-based electronic communications media is a clear violation of constitutionally guaranteed personal liberties unless shown to be reasonably related to terrorist activities. All-invasive Big Brother government is at our doorstep. We will be unable to roll it back and close the door after it has entered the house. Terrorism must be confronted and defeated...but not at the expense of the very same personal liberties we are fighting to preserve and the terrorists are fighting to take away from us. If this continues, we may see the day when those who love liberty will need to oppose not only terrorists but the governments that will have come to resemble them.
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ReplyDeleteAyn Rand wrote, "Individual Rights are not subject to a public vote; the majority has no right to vote away the Rights of the minority; the political function of Rights is precisely to protect minorities from all oppression by the majorities [and the Smallest Minority on Earth is the Individual."] She also wrote, "The Individual is the Smallest Minority on Earth. Those who Deny Individual Rights, cannot claim to be defenders of Minorities."
ReplyDeleteOur Privacy Rights and our Fourth Amendment Rights are under attack as never before; because of the War on Terrorism. I for one think that at this point in the War on Terrorism our Congressman and Senators are using this war as an excuse to enhance their position of power. Our elected officials are straying from the Constitution and Bill of Rights in the name of "protecting us".
ReplyDeleteThe above vote in the House of representatives that Casey pops alludes to is a masterful example that the movement in this country is to the right ... a more conservative point of view. On every issue? certainly not. On the important issues of Freedoms that were given to us by the likes of Jefferson in the Constitution and his Bill of Rights ... but always given to us by God and can only be taken away by God or our lack of attention and desire to retain them from meddling, power grabbing politicians in the name of "PROTECTION"
ReplyDeleteWhere does our freedom come from? I subscribe to the position that (and I wish I could find who said this first) freedom is the default condition of human beings; we are born free, and as time goes on we are taught or coerced to surrender that freedom.
To put it in more familiar language: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ... with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. We free men and women give power to the government; government does not grant us our freedom.
The reality, however, is you and I are the ones who give the government permission to act this way. You are free to do anything you like, if you are willing to accept responsibility for your actions and if you do not intrude on anyone else's freedom. Authority can only limit your freedom, and then only with your permission; it cannot give you permission to be free anymore than it can give you permission to breathe. Just as breathing comes naturally and automatically, so does freedom.
I'm not saying that insisting on your right to freedom of worship, freedom of speech, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, freedom to keep and bear arms, is not a dangerous proposition. We are increasingly assailed by those who would take those freedoms away for various excuses, and many laws that gut the Bill of Rights are seen in contemporary America as right and necessary.
I am saying, however, that governments derive their powers, just or otherwise, from the governed. A government that does not have the consent of the governed can't govern effectively.
Freedom is the default. You hold it in your power to press the reset button anytime you can gather the courage.
In the process of defending our way of life, our freedoms, our Constitution, our Bill of Rights,our right to bear arms,our right to free assembly, etc., we need to keep in mind that there are those among us that are dishonest about their beliefs and actions. They are the evil "wolf in sheep clothing" that we are guarding against.
ReplyDelete"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion."
Edmund Burke
"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated."
ReplyDelete-- Thomas Paine, “The Crisis”, December 23rd, 1776
We need to approach the trouble that we are in with the assault on the Constitution and Bill of Rights as being much more serious than what seems to being done.
ReplyDeleteIf we allow this assault to reach fruition,if we adopt the belief that this will not happen - this will go away on it's own, if we say this is next on my list. Then forget it because by the time we all get to addressing this attack it will be far to late and too much water will have gone under the bridge.
"We The People ..." have the only power there is to turn this onslaught on our rights and liberties, this frontal attack so poorly camouflaged will have succeed and the clock will have no more time on it.
Much like if we allow Obamacare to go into effect ion January 2014, it will be for a long time , if not forever the law of the land. And there to will go a lot of our freedoms and liberties to act on own needs and desires. And some 30% MORE of the GDP will be under direct control of the Federal government.
To poorly quote ... "Don't Ask For Whom the Bells Toll, They Toll for You and I" = Ernest Hemingway (please for give me loose handling of you fine work Mr. Hemingway)
We must all take responsibility for our environment of government and life possibilities. People today want to play the blame game.
ReplyDeleteWe as a group of citizens blame the federal government for intruding on our "guaranteed freedoms and liberties", the government blames the times and specific situations for the need of more control over the citizens, we all blame the likes of the NSA for and their agents for being over aggressive in their need to justify their survival with our intrinsic, invading Federal government, and our Federal government in turns blames the government for acting without authority and responsibility towards the Constitution.
The BLAME GAME just keeps going around and around never stopping. never seeking the truth or standing up and taking responsibility for their illicit actions.
When at the end of the day its is us, us lonely citizens who find every excuse to not take responsibility for our own lives, liberty, pursuit of happiness.
The power is ours to keep or to loose. And we have the opportunity to exercise that power every year at a local, state, or national election. And yet at best only half of those that can vote are even registered and not all of those show up to voice their opinions and exercise their responsibility
"Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will - his personal responsibility in the realm of faith and morals."
Albert Schweitzer
“But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. Those who know what virtuous liberty is, cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of their having high-sounding words in their mouths.”
ReplyDelete― Edmund Burke
Our Congress is not a body of representatives from differing and antagonistic interests, which each must maintain and continue at any cost, against all other representatives in Congress. Our Congress is a body of men and women, white and black, professional and employees, patriots and everyday citizens … a purposeful body of 1 country with 1 concern … that of the entire nation, not a specific group or ethnic sub-division. Congress is a body that should not be concerned with local partialities, but instead with the general good of the nation. Once elected to this body a member is from a certain district, but he or she should also be astute enough to see the larger picture and how it affects the entire republic.
ReplyDeleteThere are local issues of importance, certainly. But when dealing with the continuance of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, when issues deal with financial responsibility, when the issue in front of this Congress is that of our involvement in foreign affairs, and our assistance to the oppressed citizens of the world we should speak and act with one voice … the voice of the nation, the desire of the nation, the best will of the nation. Not the voices of the few that control this elite body.
Our Congress is a representative assemblage of the people, not of the congressmen/women or senators interest or desires. They represent us. And should one or all cease in doing this they need replaced or recalled. The United States of America exists by the WILL OF THE PEOPLE.