Used to be, you could close your door and the outside world wouldn't bother you. You had privacy, such as it was, unless you did anything weird in your front window or doorway.

Then came the min-cam, not just the hand-held models but also the computer-mounted editions that hackers have now found a way to monitor, even against your will.

And there's the heat-sensors that big-city drug units are starting to use, driving down streets in search of heat signatures telling of grow-house operations. And the airline body scanners that show every nook and crevice on what was formerly your VERY private body.

There are scanners fully capable of monitoring your cell-phone calls, and every phone out there now has GPS tracking built in. If you call someone powerful enough, you can BET they have a fast way to find you.

So what to make of our privacy loss --- and the Tea Party silence on this fundamental issue? For this I turn (surprising even me) to ultra-liberal columnist Glenn Greenwald over at Salon, as interpreted by Nat Hentoff (a guy who started off as ultra-liberal in the Village Voice), who is sounding more conservative with every passing year.....

QuoteIf Obama's lockstep Democrats are still in control next year, Glenn Greenwald continues, "Internet services could legally exist only insofar as there would be no such thing as truly private communications; all must contain a 'back door' to enable government officials to eavesdrop."

Would this still be America?

There's more to Obama's euthanizing of the Fourth Amendment in Charlie Savage's reporting: "Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services (ALL services) that enable communications – including encrypted e-mail transmitters like Blackberry, social-networking sites like Facebook, and software that allows direct 'peer-to-peer' messaging like Skype – to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap. The mandate would include (the government) being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages."

As Sen. Frank Church said long ago when he was the first to discover the omnipresent spying on us of the National Security Agency (NSA), eventually, "no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything. ... There would be no place to hide."

Not at all surprisingly, President Obama has extended the reach – and just about total lack of accountability – of the NSA.

But if the Republicans take control of Congress after the midterm elections – and then under a new Republican president in 2012 – is there any certainty that we may begin to be under the protection of the Fourth Amendment again?

Insofar as the tea partiers will continue to be an influence on the Republicans – having already been instrumental this year in re-electing some – I have not, as I've reported, seen much concern among them about our vanishing privacy (though I admire the tea partiers declared devotion to the Constitution).

As of this writing, I have no idea who will be the Republican presidential candidate in 2012, but I'm not aware that any of the potential leading Republican candidates are impassioned about the Fourth Amendment.

Even if she's not a candidate, the perennial newsmaker Sarah Palin will be an influence on the 2012 elections. She probably doesn't remember, but I was the first national columnist to recommend to John McCain that she be on his ticket, having read of her independence of party orthodoxy in Michael Barone's invaluable "Almanac of American Politics," as governor of Alaska. Anyway, I strongly recommend to firebrand Palin what Justice Louis Brandeis wrote in his dissent in the first Supreme Court wiretapping case, Olmstead vs. United States (1928):

"Discovery and invention have made it possible for the government, with means far more effective than stretching upon the rack, to obtain disclosure in court of what is whispered in the closet. ... The progress of science in furnishing the Government with means of espionage (on American citizens) is not likely to stop with wiretapping."

Was he ever right!

"Ways may some day be developed," Brandeis continued, "by which the government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court." (He didn't foresee the Patriot Act's giving the FBI permission to sneak into our homes when we aren't there and photograph those papers.)   

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=211885

The left wants privacy gone. Obama is dangerous to every American for leading that charge.

PUBS and conservatives have a saying, ( or use to ) expressed on The Loose Nut Forum and other forums, so many, many times; "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." 

'Twas said so many times, it became nauseating. How a different 'PROTECTOR' of the Constitution changes the tone, eh?



Disclaimer; not directed at you, Quill, but PUBS and conservatives in general.

Quote from: Shooterman on October 06, 2010, 08:20:41 AM
PUBS and conservatives have a saying, ( or use to ) expressed on The Loose Nut Forum and other forums, so many, many times; "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." 

'Twas said so many times, it became nauseating. How a different 'PROTECTOR' of the Constitution changes the tone, eh?


Bout sides need a wake up call around the Constitution.

Disclaimer; not directed at you, Quill, but PUBS and conservatives in general.

Quote from: walkstall on October 06, 2010, 08:51:52 AM

Sorry, Walks, but  ???

Quote from: Shooterman on October 06, 2010, 09:22:25 AM
Sorry, Walks, but  ???

Hmmmmm now how do I delete that.   :o

Quote from: Shooterman on October 06, 2010, 08:20:41 AM
PUBS and conservatives have a saying, ( or use to ) expressed on The Loose Nut Forum and other forums, so many, many times; "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." 

'Twas said so many times, it became nauseating. How a different 'PROTECTOR' of the Constitution changes the tone, eh?

Disclaimer; not directed at you, Quill, but PUBS and conservatives in general.

It was the liberals who always bitched about the Patriot Act and "big brother" and "warrantless phone-tapping" and all the other "right to privacy" issues.  And it was the conservatives who understood that unless you were a CRIMINAL, you had nothing to worry about.  Now that Bush is gone and Obama is in charge, the tables are turned, and opposite positions have been taken by the liberals and conservatives.

It's all just a bunch of sickening, political hypocrisy.

Quote from: AmericanFlyer on October 06, 2010, 03:54:22 PM
It was the liberals who always bitched about the Patriot Act and "big brother" and "warrantless phone-tapping" and all the other "right to privacy" issues.  And it was the conservatives who understood that unless you were a CRIMINAL, you had nothing to worry about.  Now that Bush is gone and Obama is in charge, the tables are turned, and opposite positions have been taken by the liberals and conservatives.

It's all just a bunch of sickening, political hypocrisy.

There were a few of us that use to warn that a liberal may get hold of the Patriot Act. Sauce for the Goose and all that crap, ya know.

You still need probable cause to utilize the device.


Billy

Everything we know about Obama points to the fact that he's a socialist. Why is there even any doubt?
I love how you progressives continue try to spin it, but his background, and his policies and his crowd of Commie Cronies all point in that direction, and he admires the socialist's and Marxist dictators, and supports their policies and his agenda functionally socialist.
Is that so hard to understand?

Quote from: Conservative16 on October 07, 2010, 07:19:28 AM
Everything we know about Obama points to the fact that he's a socialist. Why is there even any doubt?
I love how you progressives continue try to spin it, but his background, and his policies and his crowd of Commie Cronies all point in that direction, and he admires the socialist's and Marxist dictators, and supports their policies and his agenda functionally socialist.
Is that so hard to understand?

Conservative16, you're speaking to the choir in here, for the most part.  I believe in intellectual honesty.  Some of the same people who were so overwhelmingly in favor of the Patriot Act are now the same people who are criticizing the Obama administration for "spying" on people.  You can't have it both ways.  That's the game that the liberals play, not intellectually honest conservatives.

I happen to be in favor of the "spirit" of the Patriot Act, although as with ANY governmental "intervention" into our lives, there is always the specter of abuse and fraud and all things "unsavory". 

If any of you believe that there aren't governmental, and non-governmental, entities who are monitoring the internet 24/7/365, and have been doing so for MANY years, you are very naive.

Getting back to Vladimir Obama, OF COURSE he is a dangerous concoction of communism, Marxism, and socialism.  I would be happy to share what I hope happens to him and everybody in the federal government who shares his "vision", but I would run the risk of getting arrested.

Quote from: Conservative16 on October 07, 2010, 07:19:28 AM
Everything we know about Obama points to the fact that he's a socialist. Why is there even any doubt?
I love how you progressives continue try to spin it, but his background, and his policies and his crowd of Commie Cronies all point in that direction, and he admires the socialist's and Marxist dictators, and supports their policies and his agenda functionally socialist.
Is that so hard to understand?

Just who are the 'you progressives here. Oh, we may have one oor two that we've known for years, but 'you progressives' seems to be a wet dream of yours.

Shooterman, here is the fault in your strawman argument. Many conservatives like myself are just fine. I still don't feel I have anything to worry about. Clean living does have it's benefits. So stop ASSuming you know what all Republicans think because you very clearly don't know.

Quote from: Conservative16 on October 07, 2010, 07:19:28 AM
Everything we know about Obama points to the fact that he's a socialist. Why is there even any doubt?
I love how you progressives continue try to spin it, but his background, and his policies and his crowd of Commie Cronies all point in that direction, and he admires the socialist's and Marxist dictators, and supports their policies and his agenda functionally socialist.
Is that so hard to understand?

Yes or no. Was this post directed at me, who started the thread? You didn't quote anyone, so it's nice to know who "you socialists" refers to.

Quote from: Dan on October 08, 2010, 05:45:10 AM
Shooterman, here is the fault in your strawman argument. Many conservatives like myself are just fine. I still don't feel I have anything to worry about. Clean living does have it's benefits. So stop ASSuming you know what all Republicans think because you very clearly don't know.

I presume you have a reason ( more importantly, are in answer to a post ) that has started this simple little nonsensical tirade. Would you care to share it with us poor mortals that have not the ability to read minds.

I, also, really hope, Daniel, me boy, that you are, of necessity, not worried about me giving a good crap about what you say.

Quote from: Shooterman on October 07, 2010, 10:09:33 AM
Just who are the 'you progressives here. Oh, we may have one oor two that we've known for years, but 'you progressives' seems to be a wet dream of yours.

I was going to post this last night when I saw it, but decided to hold off and see if I still felt as strongly the following day.

It occurred to me that this was a copy/paste job from a prepared script, and he simply forgot who he was talking to. Old Socialist and JDD are the only two here who would accept the progressive label (to my knowledge).

If on the other hand he DID know his audience and STILL said that about the rest of us, he might wish to expand on that line of thought. I don't don't have to race to the right. I'm there already.