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- Give Me Privacy or Give Me Death?
- Posted 2006-03-07
- Domestic spying, Big Brother tactics and politically motivated Fourth Amendment violations are not practices that any caring American would like to see rampant on our social scene, but this relevant question must be addressed: Would the absolute protection of your individual privacy be a fair exchange for national security and the lives of you and your loved ones? Put another way: If governmental wiretapping or other covert surveillance of any individual on the planet could have prevented the 9/11 massacre would you have objected to it? If so, would you have been able to explain your position to the survivors of three thousand victims? Or to the victims themselves during their last terrifying moments of life? Mind this - and mind this well: Anyone, from a Peeping Tom to the President of The United States, who violates the privacy of another without justifiable cause is committing a crime. In the case of furtive scopophiliacs (the PTs cited above), ample punishment is prescribed by law, although it is arguable that they should more be pitied than censured. When, however, someone in any facet of law enforcement abuses the trust placed in them, the penalty should be swift, sure and harsh. Betrayal of trust is truly a sin that cries to heaven for vengeance. Police officers and other government officials at all levels are trustees of the information available to them and are solemnly obliged to protect its confidentiality, except when a greater public interest clearly appears to be in jeopardy. Who decides when that jeopardy is in play? Obviously, it has to be the trustees involved who, having been given the authority to wield the power granted them, have also shouldered a responsibility for using it fairly and wisely. When they wilfully and/or negligently fail in that responsibility, there should be no mercy shown to them. This is our firewall against the "slippery slope" hazard so loudly trumpeted by opponents of any intrusion upon private lives - even the lives of highly suspectable terrorists and other snotbags. The guiding criterion for justifying an invasion of personal privacy is usually characterized as "a reasonable cause to suspect wrongdoing," which is clearly a judgment call before and during the suspicious act (although after-the-fact second-guessing is among the milkiest-rich cash cows on the farm of constitutional lawyers). There are those who hold that wiretaps, e-mail interceptions and surprise raids should always be preceded by the obtaining of court orders or the approval of elected officials. Whenever such foreplay is feasible, it should be observed, but anyone who would make that a rigid prerequisite of official action has little respect for criminal expertise and/or has been underexposed to detective stories and TV series and/or has misplaced confidence in the ability of politicians to keep their traps shut. There already exists a high-level Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, consisting of 11 judges, which is supposed to pre-approve eavesdropping programs when time and circumstances permit and the leaders of congressional oversight committees from both parties are routinely alerted to such plans. Sidestepping these watchdogs would be (and was, if it occurred) a serious offense, regardless of by whom it was perpetrated - yes, including GWB! After-the-fact review is a legitimate check and balance to the exercise of police power and counter-espionage and should tolerate only honest mistakes in judgment. That said, I hereby surrender to all legitimate authority the right to direct the noses of their investigatory camels into the tents of my constitutionally guaranteed protection against unreasonable search and seizure - IF, in their considered judgment, it is a prudent step toward the protection of the public at large, my immediate neighbors or little old me. Don't get me wrong, folks - I do not hold myself out as a paragon of present and past virtue. Both figuratively and literally, I would not welcome a biography that "told all." (Neither, I dare say, would you!) I don't want anyone from the local cops to a reincarnation of J. "Edna" Hoover peering into my bedroom window, or poring over my sixty-plus annual income tax returns, or listening in on my swappage of indelicate jokes with fellow oldsters. But if they have reason to suspect that I'm contemplating some apocalyptic deed, it's "Katie bar the door" until I'm either exonerated or in the slammer. What was that question: "Give me privacy or give me death?" Hey. Give me a break, willya? Joe Klock, Sr. (joeklock@aol.com) is a Key Largo, Florida freelance writer. For more of his "Klockwork," visit www.joeklock.com.
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