America Under Stake Out
Posted by Adam Graham in : PoliticsThere is a big to-do about the NSA obtaining American’s phone records. To hear some talk of it, this constitutes a compromise of essential liberties.
Give me a break. The concern over government obtaining phone records is overblown. Understand, that we’re not talking about a warrantless wire tap, which there’s a bit more of a debate on, we’re talking about a “phone record”.
What exactly does my phone record or your phone record tell anyone? It tells the government the numbers of the people who called your phone number and who you called out to. Now, a key point in this is the program is not individualized, so my phone number 208-xxx-xxxx doesn’t have a big label on it that says, “Adam Graham’s Phone Number.” Now, if the federal government, we’re making an investigation and my phone number came up, it would not be incredibly hard to find it, but unless they have reason to look into it, our phone numbers are just phone numbers. That’s it.
If you imagine the Orwellian idea of wiretapping every single telephone conversation that occurs as analogous to having a police men eaves dropping on every single conversation, you can imagine having a phone record as a police officer on a stake out, watching whose going in and out and everyone’s place. This isn’t illegal. There’s no warrant required to do the real life equivalent. A Police Officer could stake out my place or your place and not violate any law in doing so. Obviously, there’s things like police harasment that come into play, but its not applicable here.
This is a great tool for law enforcement and most Americans understand that. If you find a terrorist, you can find who that person’s been talking to, not only other terrorists, but non-terrorists who might have a clue.
“Yeah, that was funny about that guy. He wanted me to teach him how to fly an airplane, but not how to land or take off.”
The American people show themselves far smarter than Washington liberals as by a 2:1 margin, they support giving the Administration the tools it needs to fight terrorism. Even 45% of Democrats understand the necessity of this program. Most of us aren’t stupid. On 9/11/01 none of us sat there and said, “Well, at least the government can’t find out I called Pizza Hut.”
Comment by Alan [Member]
It seems your argument boils down to “It doesn’t affect me so it’s not big deal. I’ve got nothing to hide.” It may be that we should choose to trade off that bit of privacy, but that’s not the choice we’ve made to date.
You see, it’s not the wiretapping that is such an issue here. It’s that the administration is violating the law. This administration believes it is above the law. Our law is quite clear; this type of intercept is a search that requires a warrant. Read a few criminal cases about “pen register” cases and you’ll that they require probable cause and a warrant. A warrant is easier to get for a pen register case than for a listening case, but still required.
The administration justifies its actions by saying we’re in a war and it will take steps to keep us safe. Well fine, declare war, identify the enemy, and tell us what victory looks like. A war on terror is not a war that can be won. Terror is a tactic, not an enemy or objective.
So the problem is that the war without end will justify suspensions of constitutional rights without end. If Congress wants to amend law to give the President this power without end then let them. But until it does the President is violating the law. I know you agree that we are supposed to have a government of laws, not of people.
Do you support the 2nd amendment? Do you know why that’s there? It because the founders wanted the citizens to have the means to rise up against their government if the government becomes tyrannical. A built-in distrust of government. As one of your guest bloggers said, I think you trust the government too much. If President Hillary was tapping your phone would you think it was just fine? Are you being thoughtful or just support the Republican administration?