I hope this goes to the Supreme Court. I doubt it will be declared constitutional. Most people aren't even aware the Government is doing this, or at best they think it's just a silly conspiracy theory they've heard from their friends, but don't really believe it. When that's the situation, it should definitely be declared unconstitutional.
The US Supreme Court has shaved the 4th Amendment pretty thin in the last few years. See http://www.fourthamendmentsummaries.com/, "1990s cases" and "Cases after 2000" - there aren't very many of them. One case not mentioned on that web site is last year's "FBI can't track cars by GPS without a warrant" decision, which was made on trespassing grounds.
The US Supreme Court has taken a very legalistic view of what constitutes "search and seizure", what constitutes "in public" and what constitutes "private". These views don't coincide with common usage of any of the words or phrases, so yes, most people would be shocked to find out how they've been snooped on.
But I doubt the current Supreme Court will do anything other than allow it, on some weird technical basis that only lawyers and judges can understand or love.
Legalistic isn't the term - Orwellian is. The Supreme Court has legally defined interstate commerce to mean intrastate, trade to mean possession, and probable to mean possible. Their decisions have increasingly been unconstitutional.
They threw out all hope of remaining remotely constitutional when they ruled in Gonzales v. Raich.
> Most people aren't even aware the Government is doing this, or at best they think it's just a silly conspiracy theory they've heard from their friends, but don't really believe it.
Actually, when I've told people about this, they just shrugged it off. The fact of the matter is, the vast majority of people just don't care about these sorts of things, or think that it's OK for the government to do it.
Given the choice between keeping their anonymity and farmvilling with friends, most people will choose the latter. Especially since most people believe "Obscurity" to still be a valid security technique.
Even worse is the argument that it's OK for the government to spy on people because they personally "have nothing to hide". I hear this argument with astonishing regularity from otherwise highly educated individuals.
People forget McCarthyism; I am fine if this administration has access to my cell phone records, but I would not be fine if the red scare happened again. It is hard to take away power from government once it is considered "settled law".
I am not old enough to state this with confidence, but I strongly suspect that a large minority, if not the majority, of people were in favour of McCarthyism in order to root out those awful communists. People are surprisingly unimaginative and just don't see how it could be turned on them.
>Given the choice between keeping their anonymity and farmvilling with friends, most people will choose the latter.
And most people WONT have a problem caused by choosing the latter.
It's the few people, people who probably wouldn't chose it in the first place, that would get affected.
People like the future Martin Luther Kings and Malcom Xs, Joe Hill, Jimmy Hoffa, victims of the McCarthy persecution, the EFF, whistleblowers, anti-war protesters, OWS, etc etc.
Comments
I hope this goes to the Supreme Court. I doubt it will be declared constitutional. Most people aren't even aware the Government is doing this, or at best they think it's just a silly conspiracy theory they've heard from their friends, but don't really believe it. When that's the situation, it should definitely be declared unconstitutional.
The US Supreme Court has shaved the 4th Amendment pretty thin in the last few years. See http://www.fourthamendmentsummaries.com/, "1990s cases" and "Cases after 2000" - there aren't very many of them. One case not mentioned on that web site is last year's "FBI can't track cars by GPS without a warrant" decision, which was made on trespassing grounds.
The US Supreme Court has taken a very legalistic view of what constitutes "search and seizure", what constitutes "in public" and what constitutes "private". These views don't coincide with common usage of any of the words or phrases, so yes, most people would be shocked to find out how they've been snooped on.
But I doubt the current Supreme Court will do anything other than allow it, on some weird technical basis that only lawyers and judges can understand or love.
Legalistic isn't the term - Orwellian is. The Supreme Court has legally defined interstate commerce to mean intrastate, trade to mean possession, and probable to mean possible. Their decisions have increasingly been unconstitutional.
They threw out all hope of remaining remotely constitutional when they ruled in Gonzales v. Raich.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
> Most people aren't even aware the Government is doing this, or at best they think it's just a silly conspiracy theory they've heard from their friends, but don't really believe it.
Actually, when I've told people about this, they just shrugged it off. The fact of the matter is, the vast majority of people just don't care about these sorts of things, or think that it's OK for the government to do it.
Given the choice between keeping their anonymity and farmvilling with friends, most people will choose the latter. Especially since most people believe "Obscurity" to still be a valid security technique.
Even worse is the argument that it's OK for the government to spy on people because they personally "have nothing to hide". I hear this argument with astonishing regularity from otherwise highly educated individuals.
People forget McCarthyism; I am fine if this administration has access to my cell phone records, but I would not be fine if the red scare happened again. It is hard to take away power from government once it is considered "settled law".
I am not old enough to state this with confidence, but I strongly suspect that a large minority, if not the majority, of people were in favour of McCarthyism in order to root out those awful communists. People are surprisingly unimaginative and just don't see how it could be turned on them.
>Given the choice between keeping their anonymity and farmvilling with friends, most people will choose the latter.
And most people WONT have a problem caused by choosing the latter.
It's the few people, people who probably wouldn't chose it in the first place, that would get affected.
People like the future Martin Luther Kings and Malcom Xs, Joe Hill, Jimmy Hoffa, victims of the McCarthy persecution, the EFF, whistleblowers, anti-war protesters, OWS, etc etc.