[nsf003]

I was argueing with people about the patriot act today and they brought up the "if you have nothing to hide, then why are you opposed? are YOU a TERRORIST?" Did you ever want to tie someone up in a chair and punch them in the face until you were tired. This from a "conservative"(facist) Republican whom I respected.

I tried to explain the 4th amendment but they didn't understand. How could I refute this better.

nsf

[othermarc]

Mature or not, I usually propose a situ such as a lonely business man or woman travelling and has nothing threatening to hide but perhaps doesn't want their stash of legal pornography found. Sure, it's not mature, but probably happens a lot. Basically there are millions of things that people do that they don't want others to know about because they would be embarassed.

Stronger argument- it's definitely inappropriate for a gov't official to search you and examine your checkbook, read the receipts of your latest purchases, see how much cash you have on you.

If they still don't get it, tell them to show you in a public place their wallet and everything in it, their underwear, the lint between their toes. Still nothing? Then I'd probably shake my head and leave.

[MPFreeman]

perhaps we should just start building bunkers lined with lead and put on the tinfoil. Just imagine when Reno/Hillary comes to power with the Patriot Act. I'm worried for the future. The Patriot act has to go away.

[El Tejon]

Matt, who's that guy that's always saying "[a]ny law that can be abused, will be abused?" It's almost as if he lives with it everyday.:rolleyes:

[Chris Rhines]

I do have stuff to hide.

- Chris

[DeltaElite]

I have nothing to hide, I sold it all.
Honest, I did. :D

[whoami]

I tried to explain the 4th amendment but they didn't understand. How could I refute this better.

Tailor the message to their outlook. Biggest offpoint of the Patriot Act is this: it does NOT define what terrorism is. Ergo, 'terrorism' is what the government and the courts say it is. So when someone brings up 'if you have nothing to hide', ask them if THEY have anything to hide. When they say no, remind them that THEY ARE NOT THE ONE'S DEVELOPING THE CRITERIA, NOR ARE THEY THE ONE WHO WILL JUDGE. Then point out something they like, that their ideological opposites are opposed to....bring THAT up as an example of terrorism. Hell, if fed.gov can say having a copy of the constitution and owning a gun are signs of terrorists, where does it stop?

[publius]

Seems pretty self explanatory to me...

4. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.


I can try to make it a little more plain:

If the government does not have a good reason, they just shouldn't snoop. If your friend still can't grasp the difference in underlying assumptions about the power relationship between citizen and state that he is advocating, and the one articulated in the 4th, then he just can't grasp it, or worse, just won't.

Oh well.

[pax]

You could bring it down to a simple emotional level by asking, "If you don't have anything to hide, why aren't you walking around naked?"

Then explain that the Patriot Act and laws like it are an attempt to get citizens to walk around naked as far as the gov't is concerned, and that many people have the same emotional reaction to gov't riffling through their personal information as the person you are talking to would feel if gov't passed a law saying they must walk around naked.

(Hah -- given the way the laws are headed, how long before gov't passes a law saying you must be subject to a strip-search before you can board a plane? You know, it's impossible to satirize anything because no matter how outlandish the idea someone has already thought of it seriously.)

pax

Fire, water and government know nothing of mercy. -- Albanian Proverb

[dev_null]

Great logic. I guess this person would have no qualms about CCTV cameras in all of the rooms of their house, including the bedroom and bathroom? About going through an IRS audit every year?

Orwell was an optimist...

-0-

[Camel]

Did you ever want to tie someone up in a chair and punch them in the face until you were tired.

Yes. I recently had someone quote every statistic he could come up with as an argument and then five minutes later tell me that statistics couldnt be trusted because Jews run the media. I was so very tempted. It just goes to show I can restrain myself under even the stupidest conditions.

My advice would be to ask him what groups he belongs to. Ask him what bands he listens to. Then tell him that if his group/band displeases the government they will be declared a terrorist group and he will become a terrorist.

If a band is a "terrorist group" and you buy their album does that mean you support terrorism?

[Elmer Snerd]

It's not about whether or not I have anything to hide. If I haven't (really) DONE anything, then they have no (real) reason to look.

[JoeSF]

So what does the patriot act say ? What should I know about it?
Is it law now?

[Blain]

"If you have nothing to hide, then why are you opposed to the Patriot Act. "

Basic answer....


Because the time WILL come when I have something to hide (like when they make guns illegal).

Besides, what ever happened to innocent until proven guilty? What ever happened to privacy and civil rights? We have to stand against this, not only because of princible, but because if we loose this, we are on the fast track down to Revolution #2!!!!

[Ian]

JoeSF - It's been law since October 26, 2001. If you can stifle your gag reflex long enough to read the whole thing, here it is:

http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/Terrorism_militias/hr3162.php

Be forwarned, it's atrociously long. The basic gist is along the lines of "Yer 4th an' 5th Amendments don't mean diddly-poo any more."

[CZ-75]

Everyone has something to hide. Some things are just worse than others.

Plenty of things which are legal are still embarrassing. Bedroom behavior between spouses, for instance (I should note that some places have sodomy laws that would make the embarrassing elsewhere illegal in particular jurisdictions.).

When do the details of personal life need to become public?

I even see the law being abused by govt. employees to deal with personal enemies, like IRS agents who abuse their authority to scrutinize the records of the next door neighbor with the loud stereo and barking dog and red flag them for an audit. Or blackmail by official agencies to get informants under threat of making their private lives public.

[sm]

-Fourth and Fifth Amendments
-matter of principle
-less gov't meddlin
-1984comes to mind

[Bruce H]

The ideal situation would be a dozen men with fake badges and uniforms at three in the morning. Smile and ask a totally whipped idiot if they had a bad night or something. The caterwalling from said nothing to hide individual would be deafening. Never believe something won't happen to you because it generally does.

[publius]

Phil Zimmerman, creator of the encryption program Pretty Good Privacy, has a pretty good answer when people ask why you need encryption if you have nothing to hide, and what's wrong with outlawing it.

He asks them: would you favor a law eliminating envelopes (to take care of the anthrax threat, of course, not for any sinister reason)? I mean, if you have nothing to hide, why not just put everything on a post card? What are you concealing in that envelope, anyway?

BTW, your emails are postcards. PGP is the envelope.

[Justin Moore]

I would ask the person: "What about the Jews in Hitler's Germany that had 'nothing to hide'"? and see what their reaction is to that one.

[Master Blaster]

I would ask him if he had anything to hide.

Then I would asked him if I could tap his phone and listen to his personal conversations.

Next would it be ok if I come to your house and look through every drawer closet and box therein, including searching his computer, you will of course have to borrow it. Does he own a gun? of course you will need to borrow that to test it against the crime gun database.

If that doesnt phase him. Pull out your cell phone, and say I am going to call the office of homeland security and report that there were several arab males coming and going from his house, and they were carrying out suspicious boxes and a metal drum full of chemicals to a Rider rental truck last night.

That last one will surely have some effect.:fire:

[P12]

THIS! (http://www.keepandbeararms.com/newsarchives/XcNewsPlus.asp?cmd=view&articleid=2126)

If you want to know who might be snared in a bias extreme left or right wing government net, read the above link. This is courtesy of Reno and Co.

It was discussed here (http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=89060&highlight=maricopa+county) to some length.

Pretty damn scary if you ask me.

How many here would fit in those descriptions with little or no bias?

[Ol' Badger]

Why does every nut blame the Jews for bad statistics? Because we all know it’s the Catholics that we have to look out for!
Just Kidding :D

[Preacherman]

As a matter of fact, Badger, the Catholic Church is attracting precisely that kind of attention from left-wing forces in this country - not over the priest paedophilia problem (which is nowhere near as bad as the alarmist and sensationalist reports in the media would have you believe - it affects considerably less than 1% of the priests in the Church, a proportion several times lower than the incidence of paedophilia in the general population, by the way), but because of the Church's doctrinal views on "politically correct" subjects.

For example, the Catholic Church rejects homosexuality, abortion and artificial methods of contraception on moral grounds. This has led to some pressure groups trying to revoke the Church's tax-exempt status on the grounds that it is "meddling in politics" by virtue of its views on these subjects. The next step (already proposed by some extremists) would be to remove the Church's classification as a religious group altogether, which would then leave it open to the charge of being a "political organization" or "pressure group" - or even a "terrorist organization", if the politically correct climate desired by the Left could be legislatively imposed.

Does your religious faith prohibit certain acts as immoral? Stand by for a visit from the thought police... :mad:

[JoeSF]

The basic gist is along the lines of "Yer 4th an' 5th Amendments don't mean diddly-poo any more."

Ian,
thanks for the link. You are right it is long. Are there any examples of abuses of this act?
There must be a lot of cases the way people are talking here. Is the ACLU picking them up?

[kidao35]

Wait 'til your conservative coworker goes to his next anti-abortion clinic sit in, and gets hauled by the police and charged with "domestic terrorism". If the town/state the clinic is in has an especially pro-abortion prosecutor, I'm sure said prosecutor will be happy to charge him with it, whether or not it sticks.

In fact I'm sure it won't stick, after he's sat in jail, lost his job, paid thousands in legal fees, etc.

The shame of the Patriot Act is its going to generate a lot of needless litigation to get innocent names cleared, as provisions of it get declared un-Constitutional.

Until then, many citizens stand to see themelves financially/emotionally/socially destroyed.

[Don Gwinn]

Most people like that aren't protesting anything, so he could probably care less. Most of the time you only get the "well, what do you have to hide? Are you one of them?" line from people who have a nice, cozy little life going on and don't want to rock the boat. These people are conservatives in the truest sense of the word. They'd really like to believe the government is right as long as it's bothering someone else because fighting it will make waves.

I have lots to hide. And that doesn't have anything to do with whether I'm a terrorist. Every human being with any dignity has "something to hide."

[Delmar]

I have nothing to hide, but as I see it, its plain none of their business, and if the government continues to side step the BOR, woe be unto them. The day they lose the confidence of most of the people is the day they no longer govern. There's nothing wrong with the car, so to speak, but the drivers are getting on our nerves.

[mercedesrules]

If I had consented to be governed, which I didn't, I could only grant to the government those rights that I had to begin with. Since I don't have (and don't want) the right to enter and search other people's property without their permission, I haven't given, and cannot give, that right to anyone else. No one can have the authority to do things I don't have the same authority to do.

MR

[SDC]

Tell them "If you have nothing to hide, why could you possibly object to the Government listening to your phone calls?" Which of the founding fathers (Madison, Henry?) said "Those who are willing to trade even a little freedom for (temporary) safety deserve neither"?

[nsf003]

It was Ben Franklin.

We were at a "strategic planning session" today for our school district to plan future stuff like a mission and other rhetorical crap. The speaker, which they paid $2000 to have, highlighted on "how much privacy are you willing to give up for security" and how he was a socialist on some things. I basically listened to nothing he said after that.

nsf

[Ol' Badger]

Sorry I got you upset Preacherman. I try not to get involved with the politics of the problems of the Church. I suspect that if the lefty's take on the Catholics they will have their GODless hands full.