IF YOU HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE?
One line conservatives keep saying over and over again, in defending the latest NSA information collection revelation, is this: "Hey, li'bruls... If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to worry about about with respect to this program, and no reason to complain about it."
Although I am not a librul, I will respond to this pathetic line of argumentation on behalf of libruls and freedom-loving people everywhere:
1)"You have nothing to worry about"
Since we ostensibly do still have a First Amendment in this country, then assuming, as I do, that the government is actually monitoring the calls of every American citizen, ceteris paribus, I SHOULDN'T have anything to worry about with respect to either whom I call (whether that person is a known liberal or Bush-hater) or with respect to what I say to someone once I call him (i.e. "I hate Bush"). The First Amendment protects my right to criticize my government. And yet... history is replete with instances of the right to criticize the government being taken away, arbitrarily, in times of war and in times of peace. Recall the Alien and Sedition Acts passed during John Adams' presidency, making it a crime to criticize the Federalist regime. Recall how Socialist Leader Eugene V. Debs was JAILED by Woodrow Wilson during WWI. Debs' crime? Speaking against the war. The government, right now, can be using information it collects to revive an Alien and Sedition Acts-type law, much in the same way it is conducting a dragnet search for Internet porn to revive the Communications Decency Act. I therefore DO have something to fear. I fear that, since my government's legal rationale for collecting phone #'s can be, as far as the government is concerned, be applied so as to let it listen to my conversations, that it IS listening to those conversations (or might as well be). Thus, the government is, or is in a position to, use those conversations to pass a new Alien and Sedition Law that violates the First Amendment. I can be jailed for having violated this law. Ex post facto prohibitions, you say? This Administration would come up with some argument, which any number of courts would buy, that would make legal behavior illegal after the fact, in violation of the ex post facto clause. I mean, a court, by giving its blessing to a new Alien and Sedition Act scheme in the first place (assuming that the Administration actually dared to vet the legality of a scheme before a court), would consider preservation of the prohibition of the non "ex post facto" aspect of such a scheme to be a less-than-consideration. Once the court has raped the 1st Amendment, it won't mind adding a little scum to the ex post facto clause. I wish that any of what I am saying is outlandish. Given what this Administration has done, what it has gotten away with, and what other Administrations have gotten away with, I have plenty to fear - the thing I have to fear is the rules of the Constitutional game being changed at the government's whim such that I could be put in jail for engaging in perfectly lawful activity, even though I DO have nothing to hide - since what I will proverbially be hanged with -something the government will only decide at its whim is no longer acceptable - is something I'd be happy to share with the whole world. It's a little more complicated than "If you have nothing to hide, why are you worried?" When government can change the rules of the game, can manipulate or destroy your procedural and substantive due process rights, and can declare we are a nation of men and not laws, we can simultaneously declare we have NOTHING TO HIDE AND declare that we have much to fear-the prospect of being put in jail.
"No reason to complain about it."
"If I have nothing to hide, I have no reason to complain about the NSA program."
Fortunately, our Founding Fathers and Chief Justice Marshall's Supreme Court made clear that the noxiousness and illegality of a law were to be determined solely by whether that law violated the Constitution - not by whether a citizen had "something to hide" with respect to compliance therewith. Either a law is constitutional, based on the wording of the Constitution or Supreme Court interpretation thereof, or is not. If the law is unconstitutional, that fact alone entitles the citizen to express his disapprobation of the law, REGARDLESS of whether "he has anything to hide" vis a vis complying with the law. The rack and the screw are universally recognized as cruel and unusual forms of punishment, and impermissible police interrogation techniques. Perhaps a suspect has incriminating information that can be extracted through putting him on the rack and the screw. It matters not whether the information can be extracted through this technique - or if there IS information to be extracted; if the LAW through which the information is extracted is unlawful, that is the end of the inquiry, because there are legal limits as to what the police can ask and how they can obtain information. Say I truly objectively did have nothing to hide, and some foamy said, "Well, you wouldn't mind being subjected to the rack and screw to confirm this?" Yes, I would, because our law does not countenance any technique being used to test my assertion; rather, the law first asks whether the chosen method of interrogation is proper, and if it is not, the information cannot be extracted, period. Our system places more value on the rule of law than on the cry of the oppressor throughout the ages, "If you have nothing to hide, then why keep it secret?" The latter question does not embody a normative value of society - and implementation of its implication - that information can be extracted through any means - fosters disrespect for the notion that we ARE a nation of laws.
Think about that, Fox. Oh, and by the way, for all of you who say you're perfectly glad to let the NSA rape your privacy, how many of you would be "OK" with the NSA monitoring and surveilling the President, Vice President, NSA and all White House senior officiails' surveillance? If you're not OK with this, why not?
Although I am not a librul, I will respond to this pathetic line of argumentation on behalf of libruls and freedom-loving people everywhere:
1)"You have nothing to worry about"
Since we ostensibly do still have a First Amendment in this country, then assuming, as I do, that the government is actually monitoring the calls of every American citizen, ceteris paribus, I SHOULDN'T have anything to worry about with respect to either whom I call (whether that person is a known liberal or Bush-hater) or with respect to what I say to someone once I call him (i.e. "I hate Bush"). The First Amendment protects my right to criticize my government. And yet... history is replete with instances of the right to criticize the government being taken away, arbitrarily, in times of war and in times of peace. Recall the Alien and Sedition Acts passed during John Adams' presidency, making it a crime to criticize the Federalist regime. Recall how Socialist Leader Eugene V. Debs was JAILED by Woodrow Wilson during WWI. Debs' crime? Speaking against the war. The government, right now, can be using information it collects to revive an Alien and Sedition Acts-type law, much in the same way it is conducting a dragnet search for Internet porn to revive the Communications Decency Act. I therefore DO have something to fear. I fear that, since my government's legal rationale for collecting phone #'s can be, as far as the government is concerned, be applied so as to let it listen to my conversations, that it IS listening to those conversations (or might as well be). Thus, the government is, or is in a position to, use those conversations to pass a new Alien and Sedition Law that violates the First Amendment. I can be jailed for having violated this law. Ex post facto prohibitions, you say? This Administration would come up with some argument, which any number of courts would buy, that would make legal behavior illegal after the fact, in violation of the ex post facto clause. I mean, a court, by giving its blessing to a new Alien and Sedition Act scheme in the first place (assuming that the Administration actually dared to vet the legality of a scheme before a court), would consider preservation of the prohibition of the non "ex post facto" aspect of such a scheme to be a less-than-consideration. Once the court has raped the 1st Amendment, it won't mind adding a little scum to the ex post facto clause. I wish that any of what I am saying is outlandish. Given what this Administration has done, what it has gotten away with, and what other Administrations have gotten away with, I have plenty to fear - the thing I have to fear is the rules of the Constitutional game being changed at the government's whim such that I could be put in jail for engaging in perfectly lawful activity, even though I DO have nothing to hide - since what I will proverbially be hanged with -something the government will only decide at its whim is no longer acceptable - is something I'd be happy to share with the whole world. It's a little more complicated than "If you have nothing to hide, why are you worried?" When government can change the rules of the game, can manipulate or destroy your procedural and substantive due process rights, and can declare we are a nation of men and not laws, we can simultaneously declare we have NOTHING TO HIDE AND declare that we have much to fear-the prospect of being put in jail.
"No reason to complain about it."
"If I have nothing to hide, I have no reason to complain about the NSA program."
Fortunately, our Founding Fathers and Chief Justice Marshall's Supreme Court made clear that the noxiousness and illegality of a law were to be determined solely by whether that law violated the Constitution - not by whether a citizen had "something to hide" with respect to compliance therewith. Either a law is constitutional, based on the wording of the Constitution or Supreme Court interpretation thereof, or is not. If the law is unconstitutional, that fact alone entitles the citizen to express his disapprobation of the law, REGARDLESS of whether "he has anything to hide" vis a vis complying with the law. The rack and the screw are universally recognized as cruel and unusual forms of punishment, and impermissible police interrogation techniques. Perhaps a suspect has incriminating information that can be extracted through putting him on the rack and the screw. It matters not whether the information can be extracted through this technique - or if there IS information to be extracted; if the LAW through which the information is extracted is unlawful, that is the end of the inquiry, because there are legal limits as to what the police can ask and how they can obtain information. Say I truly objectively did have nothing to hide, and some foamy said, "Well, you wouldn't mind being subjected to the rack and screw to confirm this?" Yes, I would, because our law does not countenance any technique being used to test my assertion; rather, the law first asks whether the chosen method of interrogation is proper, and if it is not, the information cannot be extracted, period. Our system places more value on the rule of law than on the cry of the oppressor throughout the ages, "If you have nothing to hide, then why keep it secret?" The latter question does not embody a normative value of society - and implementation of its implication - that information can be extracted through any means - fosters disrespect for the notion that we ARE a nation of laws.
Think about that, Fox. Oh, and by the way, for all of you who say you're perfectly glad to let the NSA rape your privacy, how many of you would be "OK" with the NSA monitoring and surveilling the President, Vice President, NSA and all White House senior officiails' surveillance? If you're not OK with this, why not?
posted by EnterCenter at 9:26 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home