Wiretapping: Throwing cold water on the First Amendment.

[alfredo]

You don't need to amend the constitution, you just need to bully the people into silence.

Everybody's private conversations pass through that room. They may not be listening, but the thought that someone listens throttles free expression. It need not be seditious speech that gets cooled, but unguarded words spoken from the heart get tempered a bit by the unconscious. Confessions of weakness, bold ideas, and silliness will feel the cold water of that off chance that someone will hear or read what you want in confidence.


If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about. True unless those who are listening have taken upon themselves to decide what is right or what is wrong.


We will become a nation of cowards without feeling the lash that has beaten the courage out of us.

[babylonsister]

1. That is the argument from a friend of mine:

"If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about." I was appalled and hung up on her.
She's in her 70s and married to a retired Marine, for 50+ years. I let her know what I thought, but decided it's not worth arguing about. I know where I stand, and I can't stand hanging up on her too often. She just doesn't see anything wrong with this.

[alfredo]

2. It's a form of prior restraint. It kills free expression. Your friend must

not see the need for such trivial things.

[babylonsister]

4. She doesn't. That's why I hung up. I was "SO" angry. But

I have to agree to disagree sometimes; this was one of those times.

[alfredo]

5. I've got relatives like that.

[napoleon_in_rags]

3. Sometimes you have to break it down for people.

Like, "do you commit disgusting acts when alone in the shower"
"no"
"then let me install a camera and watch you shower, if you're telling the truth you've got nothing to hide"
when they see they wouldn't do such a silly thing, then its simply a matter of getting them to understand that any government worker is just as human as anybody else, and having one of them violate your privacy is no different than having anybody else do it, really.

[alfredo]

6. It's kinda creepy too.

[snot]

7. Another answer is,

knowledge is power, and a balance of power requires a balance of knowledge.

Absolute knowledge is absolute power. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Translation: We need to know as much about those spying on us as they know about us. We aren't even coming close.

These are truisms for a reason: they've been proven true time and again over the ages.

[DBoon]

8. Here are some counter arguments

1. YOU might not have done something wrong, but what about someone you are about? Your spouse, children, parents, siblings, etc. Their indiscretions can be used to pressure you into silent compliance.

2. The more "they" know about you, the more they can make up credible slander and libel about you. Knowing your (innocent) day-to-day actions, you could be implicated in a crime or scandal you had nothing to do with - but you could not refute the accusation, as it would be intermeshed with enough true facts to be credible.

3. Knowing the prior point, people will self-censor their actions, refusing to do perfectly legal and ethical actions, for fear that will will be indirectly be implicated in something illegal. This was in fact how the East German STASI worked - not by the knock on the door in the middle of the night, but by the fear that anything you said might end up in the wrong place, and you would be denied a job or your children denied admission to college as a result.