Trading Liberty For Security: The Politics of Privacy

On September 11th, 2001 I was serving as a rifleman in the United States Marine Corps and was living in the barracks at Pearl Harbor while undergoing annual marksmanship training. I remember a Marine from the sniper platoon waking some of us up early that morning, shaking us nearly out of our racks and shouting: We’re being attacked, their hitting New York and the Pentagon!” I remember being filled with an overwhelming sense of urgency and duty, I didn’t know what we were going to do but I knew we were going to do something.

It wasn’t long before our troops were searching for Osama Bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan as they battled Al Qaida and Taliban forces. Back home in America, our D.C. politicians were nearly unanimous in their approval of any legislation crossing their desk that promised better security for our nation and almost overnight, the Department of Homeland Security was born to aid in our safety. National Guard troops patrolled our airports for weeks carrying M-16s and everyone seemed to unite and comply with the inconveniences of security as our government sought out the terrorists. Twelve years have passed and in 2013 these inconveniences have mushroomed into violations of our constitution and infringements of our personal liberty as uncontrollable and unaccountable bureaucrats and politicians implement rules and secret programs aimed at the American people.  

"Twelve years have passed and in 2013 these inconveniences have mushroomed into violations of our constitution and infringements of our personal liberty as uncontrollable and unaccountable bureaucrats and politicians implement rules and secret programs aimed at the American people."  

The nearly unanimous compliance with federal intrusions and mandates have entirely faded away and transformed into a nearly unanimous cry of outrage as we learn that our government will stop at nothing to feed its insatiable appetite for more power over the American people. It is true that many of us eagerly joined our nations leaders in an attempt to be patriotic; most of us did so not once entertaining the notion that the land of the free could somehow turn into the land of constant surveillance. Over the last twelve years many of us have come to an understanding; now realizing that we have been so careless with our liberty that we only miss it now that some of it is gone.  The people of America are slowly but steadily waking up to the schemes of our government and yet our unconstitutional overlords continue to shirk responsibility by passing the blame when they have been found out.

We have a President who not only has demonstrated his resolve to maintain indifferent to letting our diplomats and troops meet violent deaths in spite of their pleas for help while they were attacked in Benghazi but he also allows his administration to morally transgress every other reasonable expectation of sound government as well. Earlier this year, the Justice Department secretly seized two months of phone records of editors and reporters from the Associated Press with a “secret warrant.” The idea of having a secret warrant to secretly seize someone’s papers and invade their privacy completely undermines the purpose of having a warrant in the first place. Warrants aren’t required for search and seizure in the Bill of Rights to protect the government, they are required to protect the citizen from tyrrany by requiring the government to provide proof to the citizen that checks and balances are being applied through due process to ensure that his rights aren’t being violated. If someone is going to break the law in secret do they really need to get secret permission from another secret person? This is absurd!

"The idea of having a secret warrant to secretly seize someone’s papers and invade their privacy completely undermines the purpose of having a warrant in the first place."

Furthermore, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has issued an order to Verizon to force them to turn over millions of their customers phone records to the National Security Agency. What’s even worse was that the order prohibits Verizon from telling anyone including their customers that their records were turned over! This same government has also inquired about purchasing 30,000 aerial drones for domestic use and our President had a really a hard time saying that they won’t be used to kill American citizens. This is what happens when a nation people fail to exercise stewardship over their liberty and jealously guard their God given rights from the abuse of those they have empowered. 

The AP scandal, Benghazi, the IRS targeting Tea Party groups, the Fast and Furious cover up and the list continues to grow. Keep in mind that the man occupying the Oval Office in the White House is that same man who earned the votes of millions based on campaign speeches that went like this:

“I have said repeatedly that there should be no contradiction between keeping America safe and secure and respecting our Constitution…” 
- Presidential Candidate Barak Obama, 2007

“I will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorist without undermining our constitution and our freedom. That means no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens no more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime no more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided no more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient, that is not who we are and it is not what is necessary to defeat the terrorist…our constitution works.”
- Presidential Candidate Barak Obama, 2007

It is at times like this I am reminded of the very wise words of one of our Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin, when he warned us, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Foreclosing on our liberty for the sake of security begs the question: What have we really secured? America has a great tradition of protecting freedom and now more than ever we need to hold the federal government accountable and demand answers from our congress and not let them let President Obama get away with his unprecedented overreach and abuse of power.