This is the final step to a totalitarian government as privacy and the right to know what information is being collected about us and with whom it will be shared are decided by government fiat, without even the input or protections that a Representative or Senator might put into place to prevent abuses.

Under bush/cheney we have the most secretive and law-breaking maladministration in American history, and anyone believing that all these interlinked databases will be used solely for good is incredibly naive.

It grows increasingly clear that the government intends to be informed of each and every aspect of our lives in order to control us: controlling us by releasing good info or bad makes no difference when just the release of certain information can prevent hiring, insuring, health plans, housing, destroy reputations, etc., while the citizen has no right to see, read, or obtain a copy of the secret information with which the government may affect or destroy every single aspect of your life with no appeal available as a remedy for the citizen.

And let there be no doubt: When government collects and records even the most minute aspects of your life (Divorced? Irreconcilable differences or allegations of beatings or infidelity or venereal disease? All this and more coming to a Law Enforcement screen near YOU!) the information WILL be used and often abused (Your neighbor calls in and claims he saw you meeting with terrorists - while you are attending your grandmother's funeral with a dozen witnesses - well, it'll all be there, right or wrong, truthful or fictitious, fair or not, with or without your knowledge, and with no appeal or review for YOU).

I can think of a hundred ways this info can and will be misused, can't you?

Once again bush/cheney take us another step towards a government of secret information, dispensed in secret, with no checks and balances, and the elimination of your right to petition the government for redress by denying you the right to know what they are collecting, from what resources, maintained by who-knows-who, and with whom it is to or will be shared.

No middle ground: we are either a free society that respects privacy and protects the rights of all, or we are now a "bounty hunting" government maintaining secret dossiers on every citizen, whether those dossiers are correct or not, with an eye towards arresting and confining "suspects" indefinitely without trial or appeal or habeas corpus because terrorism overrides every other consideration. Mice or men.

In typical knee jerk reaction in the last few decades over dramatic criminal cases, the legislature passed the Patriot Act, the courts enforced it, the executive has cart blanc. This administration will never admit how happy they were over 9/11 because it was just what they needed to implement their Straussian agenda.

In the good v. evil war, the evil must be evil enough for the people to surrender their freedoms. It can take years to build the publics' consensus enough (think coke, then crack and now meth) and 9/11 was instant.

The other thing that occurs to me is soon many people may not be able to find a job because applications seem to require you to consent to employers snooping anywhere they please concerning applicants. How long will it be before people with even minor traffic violations or failure to pay some fine won't be hired?

It might even cause problems with credit applications over some minor thing that has no relationship to the loan.  

Right now most credit card companies & car insurance companies are using universal default as an excuse to charge you a higher interest rate or a large fee for being late on something totally unrelated to their loan or insurance to you.  Might they just decide to also use law enforcement records to jack up your rate?  Traffic stop - up goes your credit card interest rate.

So far Congress has allowed credit card companies to get by with financial murder on a number of fronts and they might just decide to allow them to do the same with law enforcement records.  Congress loves those credit card companies or any big business for that matter because of the campaign contributions.

You can bet the same thing is going on with your medical records; sharing them with law enforcement and big business.  I have long been opposed to this sharing of medical records because I think your health is secondary to government snooping purposes.  Think bin Laden and his kidney problem & I think you may just understand where this idea came from.  

And this new system is to include "Suspects and Targets"? Say what? A suspect is just that: a person suspected of committing some type of an already committed crime. Targets are not even lifted to the level of suspects. Somebody in some department has an idea that a person might be involved in a criminal enterprise and goes hunting. That's a target. If my understanding of these differences is not legal, I'm on the correct site to find that out grin Most of all, though, neither of these groups have ever been convicted of a crime! So why should they be in a data base, much less a national data base?

The article I just read sounds as if we're too late to stop this. Is this another of our current administration's secrets? Another program we don't need to know about?

I ran through several. Pay your credit card bill every month and we won't have the issue of non or late payers... Don't sue over things caused by lack of information and we won't need to worry about the lack of information... Have everyone pay the increased costs associatd with lack of driving/credit card payment information and we don't need to worry about it... and the list could run on.

Shut down the borders and you won't have the illegal problem. Put very strict rules on visas and you will decrease the need for following terrorist suspects.

But you seem to want no effort to prevent terrorist attacks, yet I would guess you have criticized Bush several times 9/11.

So there's a certain amount of wanting our cake and eating it too in this.

Why can't we eat our cake and have it, too?

On the other hand, it's clear that what may reasonably be shared between LEOs should not be made public.

First, however, aw, I will address your second point, since an unsatisfactory answer will also render what comes later moot. You note that I am young and infer that I did not have the opportunity "to grow up mostly free." I assume that your question, "Why should we listen to you?" comes from both observations: (1) I am relatively young compared to the commenters here at TalkLeft; and (2) I didn't get to grow up "mostly free" and therefore am not well positioned to make comparisons.

To that first point, I have little to say except that "I will not use the age and grouchiness of my opponent against him." Okay, joking aside (and with apologies to President Reagan), there is no reason that you should listen to what I have to say except that I'm fairly well educated and I can string words together into sentences which make arguments that have conclusions sharply different from your own. If you have any interest at all in understanding why many people disagree with you (and aren't so tired or arrogant as to simply ascribe it to ignorance or evil), what I write to you will probably be a good place to start, my age notwithstanding.

As far as the second point goes--my having been denied a "mostly free" youth, I'm not even sure how to respond except to deny your premise. I can't imagine how my early years were less free than those of people who grew up in the 1970s or the 1950s or earlier. Whereas those eras were consumed with limitations on personal freedoms, publicly supported racism and sexism, my youth was largely free of such intrusions and bigotry. Certainly, all were criticised publicly. I know for a fact that my life as a young gay man would have been sharply different had I grown up in the ::shudder:: 1970s or earlier.

I'm not sure I could make a a list of concrete rights that I was denied as a child or teen that, you, for example, were not (assuming of course that you're older than me to a significant extent). If I told you that I am only now in my mid-20s, could you create such a list?

To sum up my answer to your second point, if you're looking for an appeal to authority, I haven't got one for you. I happen to think you should listen to me because I'm right. But I don't have age or experience or any specific expertise that I can rely on to simply proclaim, "You should listen to me." The answer to your question is: you should listen to me, or not, as you choose. However, I have an answer to your other questions and I intend to share it with you. To that extent, at least, you asked for it.

And so I begin. aw, you have asked that I describe what Franklin's quote means to me, with some emphasis on the concept of nonessential liberties. I agree that the meaning of "essential" in this context is more important than that of "little" and "temporary." The meaning of the latter words is almost self-evident in this context, especially as the two are used together to trivialize the Safety mentioned.

So, I would take "essential" to mean "that which we cannot exist without." In context, then, it means those liberties which are so central to republican democracy that to lose them would destroy us. It is notable that not all liberties have been viewed as essential. Those familiar with John Locke's treatises on government, as the Founders were, will recall that the very existence of the State necessarily preserves Liberty and simultaneously curtails it. The struggle and purpose of organizing a State is to restrict those exercises of Liberty that are destructive--say, abusing the minority simply because they are outnumbered, or stealing from a neighbor who cannot defend himself--without going to far into Tyranny.

That necessary impulse to strike a balance between order and liberty has extend from the founding to present day. President Clinton once remarked, we "can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans...that we are unable to think about reality." [Those with access to Lexis.com can verify this from March 2, 1993 in the Washington Post or the Boston Globe.]

Examples of such compromises are all around us, and indeed, should be patently obvious. However, as I promised the "no middle ground" people something to complain about, I will list some examples.

The First Amendment says, "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech or of the press." And yet, we are all familiar with laws preventing speech which presents a clear and present danger to the public. We know that obscenity is not protected speech and neither are fighting words, despite the fact that both have the expressive character of protected speech. Similarly, commercial speech is subject to greater regulation that other types of speech. This despite the clear language of the First Amendment.

Are we to conclude that speech freedoms are not an Essential Liberty? Or can we make a more nuanced appraisal? Rather than viewing the denial of some speech freedom as a denial of all speech freedom, we should be asking ourselves whether speech which presents a clear and present danger, obscene speech, fighting words, and commercial speech are "things that the republic cannot exist without." Only if it is clear (or maybe likely?) that republican democracy would come to an end unless  fighting words are protected speech, should we declare that the right to use fighting words is an Essential Liberty.

Of course, you know that fighting words and obscenity and the other types of speech have been regulated or prohibited since time out of mind. Clearly, they are non-essential Liberties.

It probably requires little discussion to note that the Second Amendment has seen its share of compromises in the name of order. Whether you take an "individual rights" view or a "militia rights" view of the Amendment, denial of the freedom to buy, sell, and use firearms is a denial of Liberty, but it is one that is widely regarded as necessary for the continuation of republican democracy. Oddly enough, then, while some ownership of firearms is held out as an Essential Liberty to combat the tyranny of government, it seems that some regulation of firearms is an Essential restriction on Liberty, in order to preserve Order.

The Fourth Amendment is probably foremost in your thoughts, in this time of terrorist surveillance, and DOJ databases, and airport body-searches. Surely, the Fourth Amendment in its entirety is an Essential Liberty? Well, not quite.

No one here is going to deny that the Fourth Amendment has been compromised in the name of order. On that point the "no middle ground" folks will simply have to concede. The difficult comes in determining which of those compromises we are willing to live with--indeed, are nonessential--and which cut to the very heart of republican democracy.

Probably the least contentious will be those compromises that took place long before the Presidents Bush (and long before my birth). I'm talking about searches and seizures, of course. The text of the Amendment is pretty clear: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon Probable Cause..." And yet, the Supreme Court, and Congress, and the state legislatures, have all created policies whereby it's possible to enter a building and search for people or items and seize such people and items without search warrants. In fact, some searches are allowed without even reasonable suspicion.

These searches based on "exigent circumstances" and "administrative investigation" certainly have less of a pedigree than the First Amendment compromises I listed above, but they go back before my lifetime, at least, and the republic has not fallen as a result. For that reason, some applications of the Fourth Amendment cannot be called Essential Liberties. Clearly, administrative searches pose no threat to the existence of republican democracy.

Searches at transportation hubs fall into the same category: those things which are a curtailment of Liberty, but which are necessary for the preservation of Order. When it comes to airport searches, the argument is over the degree of scrutiny that should be applied to each passenger, not the very necessity of scrutiny. It is notable that the republic goes on, despite the fact that airport security was drastically increased following the airline hijackings and bombings of the 1970s and 80s.

I could go on, but at this point I want to turn to the more contentious compromises--the ones that have led some zealots to declare that there is no such thing as middle ground--and examine whether they represent threats to the existence of republican democracy. Needless to say, I am satisfied that the above list of compromises reveals the lack of understanding of modern America that is presented by the "no middle ground" folks. Clearly, there is a middle ground between unrestrained Liberty and tyrannical Order. As ever, our jobs as citizens is finding it.

I turn now to three contemporary compromises that possibly represent threats to Essential Liberties. That is, these things could represent a real threat to republican democracy. I've chosen, because they are dear to many of you: (1) the denial of habeas corpus petition to US citizens; (2) the warrantless surveillance of transoceanic terrorist phone calls; and, topically, (3) the DOJ database that was so recently discussed here.

(1)
Returning to our test: an Essential Liberty is one which is necessary for the very continuation of republican democracy (or American democracy, or "our way of life" or whatever way you want to phrase it). To define it by its lack: our very existence would be threatened by its absence.

The constitutional right to habeas corpus provides for every citizen who is held prisoner, the right to appeal such confinement to a federal court. It was included by the Founders because King George had a habit of locking up Colonists and forgetting where he put them. Such an act is a patent example of Tyranny: the denial of liberty without recourse to law. Such an act could easily be exercised against a populace in an attempt to destroy it (and was, of course, by that very same King George).

Therefore, it is clear that habeas corpus is for  citizens an Essential Liberty. Without it, our very existence as a republican democracy would be threatened.

(2)
Warrantless surveillance of the transoceanic telephone calls of suspected terrorists is not clearly prohibited by the text of the Fourth Amendment. After all, a phone call is not a "person, house, paper or effect." However, as I demonstrated above, neither Congress, nor the courts, have chosen to apply a strictly textual understanding of the Amendment. Modernly, we know that the prohibition against searches and seizures applies to such intangibles as conversations on telephones.

So that's not the problem, here. Such surveillance no doubt constitutes some curtailment of Liberty. Our job is to decide whether such restriction threatens the very existence of the republic. Only then does the right to not have one's suspect phone calls listened to without a warrant rise to that of an Essential Liberty.

I would argue that it does not pose such a threat for three reasons. First, such surveillance is only undertaken with reason, and does not represent a type of randomized search. Second, I find it unlikely that communication between law-abiding individuals--something necessary for republican democracy to continue--will be deterred. Third, criminal activity, on the other hand, does not constitute private activity meriting Fourth Amendment protection. Indeed, I find that these searches have some benefit to the maintence of ordered democracy: (1) they occur at borders, where hightened scrutiny has often been applied; and (2) it is difficult to acquire warrants in advance due to the technologies involved.

Therefore, on balance, I do not find that the right to have one's suspect transoceanic phone calls go unmonitored to rise to the level of an Essential Liberty. There will be no crushing of democracy just because suspected phone calls are being scrutinized when they cross borders. Furthermore, privacy interests--already curtailed at borders--are not threatened without reason.

I recognize, however, that others will, having weighed the same concerns that I just did, reach a different conclusion. Hence, the importance of having a national discussion with the intent to find out how much Liberty is to be given up for Order. We must find the middle ground.

(3)
As I wrote yesterday, my concerns about the DOJ database center on whether or not private information will be made public or shared with individuals not privy to it. Privacy is foundational for republican democracy. However, once information is public, I see no reason why law enforcement agencies should be prevented from sharing it.

Without knowing more about the DOJ program, my analysis must end there. I don't see it as a threat to Essential Liberty so long as it only makes use of public information. I am not so excitable or anti-government that I will immediately assume that objectionable, contrary use is its purpose without at least some evidence that that is the case.