It is one of those nearly impossible questions. You might as well ask how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Civil Rights are not something to be taken lightly. Nor are they something to be considered "in balance". They are things we must fight for, and defend with our last strength. Because once lost, they are never regained easily.
Today, Eric Holder announced that the Justice Department would ask the Courts to allow the implementation of the Voter Rights Act requirements on Texas. Because one person was harmed. Just one is not more than enough, it is too many by a thousandth. That is a Civil Right we should fight for, and oppose any effort to disenfranchise anyone. But if we use your metric, how many must be harmed before we should care? Do we need to wait until a reasonable fraction of a group is harmed? What is the fraction? How many?
America has a long history with abuses of power, and while many have forgotten, even here, I for one do not intend to march down that road again. Hoover's secret files kept Washington in fear of what disclosures he could make to harm someone who crossed him. The Army and FBI kept many secret operations from FDR, and Truman including the Venona Project. Imagine that, the Army deciding that the President was untrustworthy after consulting with J. Edgar Hoover. Could that happen today? Why couldn't it? FDR was the one who helped get Hoover into the FBI along with another man named Donovan. Donovan ran the OSS during World War II, and was purportedly in a constant battle over who had espionage responsibility, the OSS or the FBI, with Hoover. Yes, Hoover wanted all the spying to go through his office.
McCarthy and his secret lists of suspected Communists. You could get off the list, but you had to name someone else or better yet several someone else's.
Too many secrets, and too much power, has never been handled well by anyone in Washington. Douglas Adams had a theory that I am beginning to consider wise beyond it's time. His theory was that anyone who wanted the Power that went with an elected office, was the one person who never should be trusted with it. Take it further, anyone who wants to have a Top Secret Clearance, shouldn't be allowed to have one.
So what harm must be wrought upon us before we even start talking about reigning it in? What harm did Hoover's secret files cause? Will we ever know the secrets that were used to change the course of who knows how many policies?
But let's take it a step back shall we. What good does it do? Don't give me the dozens or hundreds of terrorist attacks. I can make that claim about a comic strip and you could not disprove it any easier than I can with notional threats to even more notional targets. Let's look at it for real. In every case that has made the news, some dolt has talked to someone, who called the cops, who put him in touch with the FBI. Suddenly the loner has dozens of friends, all of whom are Federal Agents, and all of whom are part of the big conspiracy. The most recent one was two guys who walked into a Synagogue and offered to wipe out Israel's enemies. The Rabbi called the FBI. Next they went to the KKK, and asked for some help, and get this, the KKK turned them in too. They were charged with manufacturing a WMD in the form of an X-Ray generator. This was an X-Ray bomb powered from a cigarette lighter. I imagine, after a few months, you might get enough from it to increase your cancer risks slightly.
So what good does this program do? It allows someone to target members of groups. If the Republicans are in office, anyone who comes to this site will be marked, and put on watch lists, and they'll keep an eye on us as the digital extension of Nixon's enemies list.
So what would be the harm of that? Perhaps none, but perhaps you would be denied a job at a port because they think you are too radical to be issued a TWIC card. Perhaps you will lose your job at an airport because your TWIC card renewal is declined. Perhaps your targeted for more harassment by the IRS, or perhaps they'll decide you are not a fit parent for your children. What they can do is nearly unlimited. What they will do is left to the whims of those with this information, and how much power we give them.
I say power we give them. Remember, this is supposed to be a Government Of the people, By the People, and FOR the people. We were never intended to be subjects to the Government. We call the House of Representatives the People's house. Should we change that to the House that rules the People?
That's why it matters. It lays the ground work for massive abuse by whomever is bored enough to abuse it. And for those who say that it will never be abused, I'll call bullshit now. The NCIC was intended for official use only. Yet every cop runs his daughters new boyfriend through it. Every secretary runs their neighbors through. Everyone abuses that system, oh they have great excuses, but it was something we were told would NEVER happen when they cranked it up. Power corrupts.
= new reply since forum marked as read
.
Duh
