So you think you have Nothing to HIDE ?

[JDPriestly]

114. Please read my post at #36.

I explain there why this kind of surveillance is incompatible with the concept of democracy.

There is no point in staging an election if you have a government that controls the people and intimidates them by collecting this kind of personal information on the very population that the government is supposed to answer to.

The government is supposed to answer to us. We are supposed to be governing ourselves through our representatives and president.

This nation was founded in order to give control to the people over the government. This kind of pervasive surveillance gives the control to the government over the people. That is no exaggeration. And think of it, on top of this, we are going to get fences at our borders. We already have an airport security system that is draconian.

We are being told that the security systems are to keep enemies out. What we ignore is the fact that the security systems also keep us in. I think that the treatment of the Occupy groups proved this. Security is a two-edged sword.

Do you think that the rationale used in Eastern Europe to explain the repressive security systems, the guns in the watchtowers and the barbed wire fences was any different than the rationale being used here. "We have to have these precautions to keep the enemy out." Perhaps it is true that we do have so many enemies that we have to sacrifice our freedom to travel without notifying the "authorities" and that we have to keep tabs on communications between people, but have we really thought about the price we will pay for this? The price in freedom and the loss of control over our government? The loss of individuality?

People are not exaggerating the gravity of this matter. And that it has been happening all along is also not an excuse for failing to respond to it. The awareness of the danger we are in from the intrusive and controlling actions of our own government are just beginning to be recognized.

I have favored some gun control legislation. But when I think about the gun control legislation combined with this surveillance, I am having second thoughts.

What is freedom worth? Ask someone who lived in Eastern Europe or Russia or NAZI Germany. I think they might be able to explain it to you. Think about the lives of slaves in the United States before the Civil War. That might make it clear to you.

This surveillance is incompatible with freedom.