"Oh, it's just phone numbers."
This is what someone very dear to me said when I asked her about the latest "Bush shreds the Constitution" story to hit the news: the Feds are building a massive database of domestic and international phone connections. She was right, on the surface: it's not a massive library of audio files. It's just what numbers called what numbers, and when.
It's the "partial-birth abortion" tactic of rights erosion.
In the same way that Anti-Choice activists are trying roundabout ways to erode abortion rights (the South Dakota law notwithstanding) through waiting periods, outlawing abortion at a certain time period, etc., President Bush and the NSA are removing your rights in a more indirect, underhanded way.
It's just phone numbers.
Forgetting the obvious fact that phone numbers can be easily cross referenced with a variety of other databases to generate much more person-specific data... the very monitoring of American citizens in any respect is, in my lay-opinion, a violation of due process.
This is America. We have extraordinary freedoms. And in my opinion, these freedoms are based on near-absolutes. Free speech that doesn't incite harm or crime should always be free, no matter how gross, disgusting, or vile it is. People are innocent until proven guilty, which means you cannot search or monitor their personal lives without cause, and without following due process.
We are becoming the hypocrites of the world: espousing democracy abroad while slowly dismantling it at home.
Love to all. Even you, General Hayden.
1 comment:
It appears now that an Exective order can override any constitutional rights that we once held.
The right of no unlawfull search and seizure with out a warrant appears to be.. We'll take what we want in the name of Home Land Security or tie it into the Patriot Act.
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