Freedom

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." – Benjamin Franklin

Sometimes, I’m amazed at how easily people forget how fragile freedom is. Freedom isn’t going to vanish because someone overthrows the US government. Freedom will vanish in little bits and pieces. In the name of security we have slowly permitted our freedoms to be eroded away. There has been a slow erosion of freedom in the United States over the last few decades, but with the advent of new technologies, the last several administrations have made a determined effort to restict the freedoms of the citizens of the united states. Currently the patriot act takes pieces of the constitution and throws it away in the name of fighting ‘terrorism’

• Currently, Law Enforcement may search your house without a warrent or probable cause
• They do not have to notify you of their search of your property until well after the fact.
• They may monitor your conversations without a warrent or probably cause
• They don’t have to tell you they’re listening in until well after the fact.
• They may search your Library records, your credit card statements, your blockbuster viewings without your permission or a warrent from a judge or probable cause
• The librarians, Clerks at blockbuster your bank or credit card company, may not inform you of the search, nor tell anyone else about it, nor go to a judge to stop it, without being in violation the PATRIOT ACT (which carries a 10 year prison sentence for revealing secret information

Now the DOJ wants everything that you’ve ever done on the internet logged by your ISP and held in their records for several months or years. Even if you keep your life incredibly clean, the amount of very private and personal information that people talk, type and spew onto the internet is incredible. Would you want someone who has a grudge against you gain access to these records and reveal your most private stuff to the public?

What is next? every piece of mail you send through the post office will be opened and copied? Freedom isn’t about what happens to you, freedom is what happens to the person you don’t like. That group of people you think are are scum of the earth, because when you look and say, we’ll that’s good, they’re only going after the bad guys. And in the name of security you give up a little bit of freedom, You’ll find the government isn’t going to stop with what you think are the bad guys, but by then, it will be too late.

In the meantime while we’ve been sitting here, the US government is trying to pass a law that will require a de facto Federal government ID with RFID tags embedded in them (RFID are tags that can be used to identify a person uniquely and where they are at all times). All of this, of course, is in the name of your protection. OF course you can go to jail if you don’t have one of these ID’s so we will carry them around, safe and secure in the knowledge that the terrorists and criminals won’t figure out how to defeat or work around these deviced that help the government know where everyone is at all times. (As an aside, all the terrorist from 9/11 had legitimate IDs and all of these security measures still wouldn’t have stopped 9/11, but I bet you still feel safer knowing the government knows where you are at all times. I bet you still feel safer knowing the government can know what you read, what you watch, who you talk to , what you talk about and what you’re thinking. You might, but I don’t.

Freedom is fragile, And america is willing to sacrifice freedom, to feel safer. There was another country that gave up freedom for security, The Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics. 20 years ago, they were the Evil Empire. What is stopping us from ending up the Evil Empire. Right now, I’m waiting for Osama to have a press conference announcing he’s ending his fight against the United States because "Well, they don’t have any freedoms left, so I figure it’s best to declare victory now, as I have accomplished my goal, Destroying freedom."