Originally posted by: Bumrush99
Originally posted by: Starbuck1975
I fail to see how tracking vehicles for patterns of suspicious behavior is an invasion of personal liberty.
There are security cameras outside most business establishments...is it an invasion of privacy that cameras track our every move going into and out of these establishments? I think not. But if I am at an ATM, and some thug robs me at gunpoint, or worse, that security camera footage sure might come in handy for apprehending the criminal.
You are confusing being tracked while in private businesses (or on their property) with being tracked EVERYWHERE you go (even parked in your own garage).
When in doubt play the Communism card...or the Hitler card...whichever is most convenient.
Don't forget the Socialist card or the Blame America First card.
We are a far cry from Stalinist Russia, where the government abused its control and bred fear to eliminate political adversaries...our society still has a system of checks and balances to ensure that government does not infringe upon personal liberties in protecting its citizens from tangible threats.
Stalinist Russia didn't just happen overnight. There was a slow infiltration of the different branches until one group was able to gain total control. This is why the Attorney General scandal is not just something that should be ignored. And the hiring practices at the Justice Dept (over 100 Liberty grads placed from a school that didn't rank in the top 100 law schools in the nation) is especially disturbing.
Hence the system of checks and balances, and the need for free elections...the Republicans Congress got out of control in allowing the Executive to overstep its Constitutional powers, and the American people held them accountable for it.
Yet you have complained almost non-stop about the Dems performing their Constitutional duty of checks and balances as political theater to ensure that they put the branches back on a somewhat level playing field.
Your knee jerk reaction to law enforcement abuse is no more justifiable than those who are willing to sacrifice all personal liberties out of fear of terrorism...there is a delicate balance between government protection and government abuse, but one our society has managed to keep in check.
I agree with your statement about the amount of reaction being a bit extreme....as you state also though...to dismiss the possibility like a lot of others have with a "I'm not doing anything wrong so who cares if they are tapping my phones" mentality is equally disturbing.
I have had my fair share of encounters with cops, mostly due to poor driving on my part...I have had experiences where the police reaction in terms of intimidation was not proportional to my driving infractions, but I don't hold contempt towards all police due to a few bad experiences.
I can relate and concur on both parts of this paragraph.
Nice post. Lets see someone refute what Starbuck said point by point without having to resort to calling him a commie or lover of authoritarian government.
Vic
Elite Member
- Jun 12, 2001
- 50,422
- 14,337
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Where did I say otherwise? What is today for you, the pull strawmen right out of left field out of your ass day?
"Regulation to protect consumers," as you call it, is just a part of the normal protection of property that government does to serve the people. Your consuming dollars are your property, and you have the right to be assured that you are getting fair exchange for them when you make purchases. Or, at the very least, the right to be secure from theft through fraud or deception.
However, consumers are not "The People." That's just assinine. "The People" is everyone and in all their roles, producing (while you're working) and consuming (while you're shopping). The government cannot and should not pretend that it only serves one and not the other. That's the kind of mentality that got us in the corporation special interests controlling government mentality in the first place.
Nice to see the Authoritarians, both those that call themselves "Right" and those that call themselves "Left," showing the rest of us just how much they have in common and just how much their bickering is for show.
It is not fear, its distrust.
Our government is so monolithic that the average citizen stands no chance against it.
Travel with lots of cash and it can be seized without warrant and without due process. You have to go to court on your dime to get it back.
Travel abroad to some countries and your in a tracking database, same if you call.
Make transfers over 10k with a bank and it must be registered
Waco
Ruby Ridge
Hoover (as in one of the leaders of the FBI)
Imminent Domain Abuse
The problem with suspicious vehicles and such is, who is in power decides what is and what isn't a threat.
I am innocent, why should I be spied upon?
They are to be beholden to us, not the other way around.
Starbuck1975
Lifer
- Jan 6, 2005
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I don't see the distinction...if private businesses have a vested interest in protecting themselves and their customers from theft or attack, doesn't the government have the same interest in protecting its citizens...the means (video surveillance) is still the same.
Yes, in other threads, people do use the same tactic of demonizing those they disagree with, but that is irrelevant to this thread.
I beg to differ...the rise of Stalin was very violent and quite immediate...the Stalinist purges of political opponents were especially brutal and very aggressive...the creeping of Stalinistic controls across Soviet society took longer, but the emergence of an unchecked Executive branch happened fairly rapidly.
The chance of that happening in America are slim to none, largely because we do not maintain a large standing army, which any leader in America with such ambitions would require to establish such control.
No, I have criticized the Democrats for only choosing to perform their Constitutional duty when it was politically convenient to do so...had they stepped up to the plate when they were the minority party, perhaps we wouldn't be in this predicament...the Democrats found a voice, and an anti-war agenda, once Bush was down in the polls.
That is why, if anything, I place my blind faith in the power of the judiciary to protect me as a citizen from abuse at the hands of the executive or even legislative branches.
The blind trust of the government and lack of reading and understanding history astonish me. If you look at history, governments did not take over complete control in 1 big swoop. It came in small steps one after another. Each one leading to more and more fear, until finally the people gave up enough rights a corrupt leader could step into power and take over the entire thing. This is why I am against any law or legislation that goes directly against our already given civil liberties. Those liberties were given to us by our founding fathers because they had seen and experienced how corruption takes hold of an other wise good government.
Because even the briefest examination of history shows over and over again that trusting the government with more power is a bad idea. Not only is the fear of abuse of that power a perfectly reasonable concern, it seems to be what almost always happens. I have a hard time coming up with a situation where government was better able to protect its citizens by giving the police more power, I can come up with countless times where it would have been beneficial to the citizens for the police to have had LESS authority.
The best example is the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program, conducted in violation of FISA. Contrary to popular belief, FISA did not materialize out of thin air...it was enacted SPECIFICALLY because the NSA was indeed abusing its power and authority. FISA is there, not to protect against theoretical abuses of power, but to prevent repeats of ACTUAL abuses...where "a law abiding citizen" did indeed have something to fear. Yet people, using exactly the same argument you just used, argue that we don't need it because only the guilty need to worry.
And massive, large scale, constant surveillance is much along the same lines. This kind of thing has often been abused, and there is no evidence it's actually helpful. Sure, you might have nothing to fear if the government is perfectly good and honest...but history has shown that to almost never be the case. Are you naive enough to believe that we are at a point in history where, for the first time ever, the government is totally trustworthy?
DrPizza
Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
One could argue that the camera's are the same thing. Just something to protect the consumer (people).[/quote]
Out of curiousity (because I really don't know), does Israel use tons of cameras to monitor its citizens? Plenty of terrorist attacks there... maybe they're smart enough to realize that the cameras DON'T prevent attacks - they only solve the question of "who's responsible" after the attack occurs. (Of course, I suppose in that way, they may prevent a second attack.)
Hacp
Lifer
- Jun 8, 2005
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Out of curiousity (because I really don't know), does Israel use tons of cameras to monitor its citizens? Plenty of terrorist attacks there... maybe they're smart enough to realize that the cameras DON'T prevent attacks - they only solve the question of "who's responsible" after the attack occurs. (Of course, I suppose in that way, they may prevent a second attack.)[/quote]
Cameras don't protect consumers. They solve the crime after the fact. Regulation is there so you won't get E-coli when you eat beef, so you won't have rats and fingers in your meats, so you can be confident that the drugs you are taking are drugs, not sugar pills.
sandorski
No Lifer
- Oct 10, 1999
- 70,822
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I'm torn on this. With the proper oversight monitoring traffic can be a good way to solve crime, but with poor oversight it could turn into an invasion of privacy. As long as the US has Presidents like Bush who thinks that Laws, Rules, and Procedures don't apply to him/them, the potential of abuse makes such monitoring a bad idea.
All the more reason to Impeach the idiot. Future Presidents need to know what is acceptable and what is not. Failure to Impeach gives the "ok" to such actions to others.
All the more reason to Impeach the idiot. Future Presidents need to know what is acceptable and what is not. Failure to Impeach gives the "ok" to such actions to others.
No I'm not. But are you naive enough to think that government has ever been fully trustworthy? As Starbuck pointed out, our system of checks and balances, coupled with our ability to vote, mitigates the doom and gloom scenarios people jump to when discussing these issues.. This isn't the first time the US or any other democracy has engaged in questionable tactics to monitor civilian activity. Lincoln asserted executive privalege, we had camps set up for Japanese civilians during world war 2, FDR tried to meddle with the makeup of the Supreme Court, who knows what the hell J. Edgard Hoover and and the FBI plotted during his tenure, Mcarthyism, evidence points to conspiracy in the JFK assassination, Nixon was on the verge of impeachment and removal for his illegal activities and the Republican dominated congress was recently voted out partly due to the failures of the Bush adminstration in preparing for war and in part for their questionable tactics with prisoners and the big brother mentality this adminstration has pushed through...
My point being things are not worse than they were before, I'm willing to bet that with the proliferation of mass media and instant access we know a lot more than previous generations did when it comes to how our government operates.. It is hard for government to maintain covert operations, all it takes is one whistleblower to contact the Nytimes and entire operation becomes a discussion topic on message boards such as these.
The examples of Wacko and Ruby Ridge have little relevance in the grand scheme of things, we are talking about FRINGE groups that advocated the toppling of the government and that stockpiled weapons. I hate when people bring up Koresh, nobody thinks about the federal agents that were shot dead executing a federal warrant, and they love to gloss over his apocalyptic message and the fact that the Branch Davidians were prepared to die for their cause. Does it suck that the women and children died? Of course it does... But their fate was doomed the moment they decided that their suicidal cause had to be met....
Now imagine a scenario where a terrorist organization obtains a nuclear weapon and detonates it in downtown NY or Los Angeles? How should the government react at that point? Should we worry about video cameras in tunnels or should we take reasonable action to protect our fellow citizens? Should we continue to frisk 85 year old women at airport security terminals in the name of fairness, or should we target people with questionable backgrounds and intentions? Innocent people will be subject to increased scrutiny, but how can you measure that against protecting hundreds, if not thousands of innocent civilians going about their daily lives?
Triumph
Lifer
- Oct 9, 1999
- 15,031
- 14
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Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Since it's difficult to gain absolute power in one fell swoop, governments instead practice taking a little bit at a time, so that nobody notices. The slippery slope argument may be cliche, but that doesn't mean it isn't true.
When I was 19, I was dragged from a soccer game by police who used violent force against me. Why? Because the guy standing next to me was swearing at the referee and they decided it was me. Was the guy next to me doing anything illegal? I don't think so. I think the cops were on a power trip and they had the power to do whatever they wanted in that situation. What if I had punched the cop in the throat when he grabbed me from behind without warning, twisted my left arm behind my back, and bent my wrist the wrong way with the intention of inflicting pain? I would have gone to jail, period, because cops are protected from us but we are not protected from them. Cops are corruptible just like everyone else. Therefore, they should be held accountable just like everyone else. It would certainly be illegal for me to attach a GPS tracking device to my neighbor's car or cell phone or listen in on his conversations. Why should cops have the ability, much less the right, to do that to me? They shouldn't, at the very least without a warrant.
So, you can go on living in your fantasy world where if you do nothing wrong, nothing wrong will ever be done to you. Or, you can stop being so naive and join the rest of us in reality.
IIRC, there's only 1 place that is monitored - the old town in Jerusalem. But...that area is also heavily guarded with soldiers keeping everything quiet (and running!).
Other than that we have the usual cameras inside stores and such.
btw... <pokes DrPizza>
"camera's"?
Nebor
Lifer
- Jun 24, 2003
- 29,582
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Cameras don't protect consumers. They solve the crime after the fact. Regulation is there so you won't get E-coli when you eat beef, so you won't have rats and fingers in your meats, so you can be confident that the drugs you are taking are drugs, not sugar pills.[/quote]
Almost everyone in Israel is armed. Armament of the civilian population is a much better solution than cameras, because a totally armed civilian population actually prevents crimes, while a big brother government only invades privacy and solves crimes after the fact.
BoberFett
Lifer
- Oct 9, 1999
- 37,562
- 9
- 81
Do you honestly believe government regulations are in the interest of the citizens? I've got news for you. Powerful government creates incentive to control it. When the government takes the power to choose economic winners and losers there's a prize to be had for the person who controls it. Why do you think our government is more controlled by corporations now than in the past? Because it's powerful, and power is valuable. There'd be no reason to buy off our federal legislators if they were restricted to their actual constitutional duties.
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