Why Privacy Matters

Let’s talk about the spying issue... sort of. More specifically, let’s talk about why privacy matters, and let’s do that by shooting down the premium grade idiocy spewed by so many on the issue of privacy. Ug. This stuff drives me nuts.

First, let me get two things out of the way.

● Liberals..... Bush Started It!: The liberal defense seems to be that all of this began under Bush. That’s not actually true. The specific things Obama is doing began in 2008 after the Pelosi-led Congress amended the Patriot Act to allow this. But even more importantly. . . so what? This isn’t some program Obama just uncovered. He authorized it. He’s been running it since 2008. He’s been briefed almost 1500 times using information obtained from this program. Obama did this. Whether or not Bush did it too does not excuse Obama’s misconduct - he even ran against this very issue in 2008. It’s time you leftist yahoos admit that your heroes do rotten things and you can either disown them for it or you need to STFU.

● Conservatives.... That Rotten Obama!: A lot of conservatives are screaming about how unAmerican and dictatorial this is. But let me point out that this power was given to Obama through an amendment to the Patriot Act after Bush’s attempts to do the same thing were struck down by the courts. More Republicans than Democrats voted for it. In fact, as much as I hate giving Democrats credit for anything, Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden (Oregon) and Mark Udall (Colorado) tried to warn the Senate about this but nobody listened. And at the time, many of these same conservatives (like Rush who now calls this a “coup”) were attacking the people who opposed this as “weak on terror” or worse. So don’t buy the self-serving selective memory. Conservatives need to decide if we want freedom or not, and stop buying the idea that anything the government wants for policing or military or fighting terror should be automatically given. Rand Paul has already introduced a bill requiring Obama to get a warrant before he can snoop and, unsurprisingly, few conservatives are supporting him.

All right, now that we’ve moved past the theater, let’s talk about why it matters that the government is spying on phone records, internet activity, credit card activity, e-mails, phone calls, web searches, etc.

Unfortunately, explaining why this matters is difficult because when you try to warn people you inevitably face the old, “Why should I care? I have nothing to hide.” Ug. Morons. Whether or not you have anything to hide misses the point. Privacy laws like those afforded by the Constitution are not intended to protect people who have something hide. No. Indeed, they are NOT meant to protect the guilty at all. What they are meant to do is to protect the innocent from being wrongfully accused. Think about that for a moment.

Now let me explain. You think you have nothing to fear because you’ve done nothing wrong. Ok. Well, I hate to break this to you, sunshine, but whether or not you’ve done something wrong is not actually all that relevant to whether or not you end up in jail. If you become the target of a government investigation and the government can go snooping through your life and recording your phone calls, you will be convicted... whether you did anything or not.

But wait, you bleat... “Why would the government care about me? I’ve done nothing wrong.” Well, for starters, think about the conservatives now being audited because they donated to Romney or spoke their minds. Do you think they did anything wrong? What about the journalists Obama designated as terrorists just because they were writing stories he didn’t like. Did they do something wrong? Or how about this... suppose your cousin runs drugs or sells kiddie porn. Do you want to bet that you aren’t going to be investigated too? Ever transfer any money to his account for any reason? And for those of you who are sure your cousin wouldn’t do that, do you know that your coworkers or neighbors don’t? Heck, for all you know, this blog is a front for a terrorist cell (the Commentarama Liberation Army) and Uncle Sam is about to give you the finger-wave to see if you were part of it.

Still not convinced? Ok, consider this... most people get investigated because someone turns them in. And I’m not talking about a co-conspirator, I’m talking about a jealous ex-girlfriend, an angry co-worker, a fired employee, a crazy neighbor, or an angry child who didn’t like being grounded.

Guess what happens then? Then the government starts their investigation. When the law works as it should, they need a good deal of evidence before they can start snooping into your life. They rarely have cause to go fishing through your e-mails and there are no recorded phone conversations. Consequently, these false allegations typically fall apart fast for lack of evidence.

But you had nothing to hide, so you are cool with letting the government have the power to check you out. Now suppose you were accused of child abuse or child sex. You who “has nothing to hide” suddenly have the government digging into your life. Do you remember that call you made last year to your cousin when you said you let your kid drink some wine because they wanted to taste it? Do you remember that joke you e-mailed about strangling your kid? How about that picture you took of your kid naked in the tub because you thought it was so cute? How about the picture of the time little Johnny ran into the wall and ended up all black and blue? You don’t remember that, huh? Well, the government does and it’s going to call all of that a pattern of behavior, and it’s going to use that pattern to assert a right to take your kids away for questioning... where a trained “expert” will teach them that you touched them inappropriately.

Think it can’t happen? Go read about the ritual-sexual-abuse day care scandals: LINK.

Look, I’ve been a lawyer long enough to tell you that this is how it happens. When you are accused, the government works hard to prove your guilt... not determine your guilt. To do that, it strings together anything it can that might fit a pattern and it calls that a pattern. It uses the same false reasoning that leads people to see conspiracies where there are none by assuming that unrelated things are related. And it leaves it up to you to disprove your guilt... if you can. I’ve seen the government obsess over a single off-the-cuff ambiguous remark in a single e-mail out of thousands and call that “definitive proof of guilt.” I’ve seen prosecutors zealously struggle to prove obviously false allegations and keep out proof that the accuser was lying. I’ve seen witnesses lie, prosecutors lie, judges act on bias, experts who are paid to lie, etc. Innocence doesn’t matter once you are become a target.

This is why privacy matters. When the government is given the power to dig through your phone calls, your e-mails and your other communications, it will always be able to find something to convince itself that you are guilty of something. And if you get noticed for whatever reason, the government will use this stuff to get you. The fact that you “have nothing to hide” won’t matter a hill of beans at that point.

That’s why these things matter. Not because guilty people need protection, but because everyone is at risk when the government is given the right to go fishing.