Blasé about sweeping government surveillance? Think you have “nothing to hide”?
I bet you do.
Ever draw curtains? You have “something to hide.” If you balk when a con man says, “I need your birthday and Social Security Number,” you have “something to hide.” When you feel comfortable giving certain information about yourself to some persons but not others, you demonstrate your preference to hide some things from some people.
That’s not nothing.
Philosopher Harry Binswanger, however, says he is not worried. “I have no secrets. Those who raise the specter of Big Brother are not on a wrong basic premise, but they are being unrealistic: when and if we fall into the grip of totalitarianism, there will be nothing to stop the dictatorship from spying on us by any means it wishes. Such a regime does not require that the tools have been set up in advance.” Some reining in may be appropriate, but “alarmism” is unwarranted.
It’s warranted.
Totalitarianism doesn’t happen with a flip of the switch. Tyranny works from precedents. Daily encroachments help establish it.
And our government violates our rights in the here and now, in days prior to any fully Orwellian dystopia. The tools usable tomorrow by an American-style GPU or Gestapo to violate our rights can be thus used today by an IRS or NSA.
Our governments snoop on us unwarrantedly today. They hide the extent of their spying on innocent people, today. They have motives to use what they get by their spying — today.
It should stop.
Today.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
3 replies on “Something to Protect”
The average American now commits, unknowingly, 3 felonies a day, what with all of the current federal regulations, most of which have nothing to do with the 17 duties that the Constitution authorizes the federal government to actually do. Just a question of the government deciding to notice and charge you.
Paul and Drik, Exactly and well said. I cannot believe the number of people who say,”I have nothing to hide.” Granted, right now my fon calls and emails might be a tad boring, but that is certainly NOT the point.
I feel great sorrow in the terrible treatment of all the whistle blowers, as they each were striving to protect precious autonomy.
Government snooping MIGHT stop when we stop demanding goodies. AND when we stop voting for those who promise us something for nothing.
How do we not go back to the ‘greatest generation’? Maybe they saved the world for democracy but they also lionized FDR. The world we live in today, with an overbearing federal government, was nurtured decades ago.