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Here’s why it’s important.
By Tom | August 6, 2007
I came across a Virginia-based website that expressed an opinion I’ve heard before with regard to warrantless wiretaps and wasn’t able to clearly refute.
In essence, the argument goes…
I don’t care if the government listens to my phone calls or reads where I go on the internet. I personally don’t have anything to hide. And I doubt most of the people online do either. So sue me for not getting fired up over an issue that doesn’t matter to me.
But I’ve thought about it and this is why it should matter and does matter to all of us:
The men who wrote the Constitution and those who ratified it, had in the 15 years prior, endured the tyranny and oppression of a high-handed monarch, fought and won a difficult war for their independence and suffered through the problems of a dysfunctional confederation. When they met in Philadelphia, it was to fix the government and permanently protect themselves and their descendants from the possibility that another tyrant would rule over them.
When they restricted the government’s ability to search and seize (and spy) without a warrant, when they limited the ability to suspend habeas corpus, they were setting up the rules to make it possible for citizens to conspire and organize against a potential tyrant before he (or she) could assume absolute power.
They wrote these rules into the Constitution so they would not be easy to change, because they knew that in some legitimate emergency, the temptation to sacrifice them for a quick fix of security would be irresistible.
The problem is that once sacrificed, these rights are difficult to reclaim. And once these rights are sacrificed, the safeguards our forefathers put in place won’t be there when a real tyrant rears his head.
I’m not doing anything now that I wouldn’t want my government to observe. But if there ever comes a day when I need to do what the founders had to do, I’d hope the tyrant couldn’t watch or listen, thank you.
Topics: Blogging, Virginia Politics, Politics |
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