And yet nothing changes
What most Americans don't know is that on Dec. 13, 2003, the right to privacy suffered another serious blow. On that day, after the capture of Saddam Hussein, President Bush signed into law the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004. This statute expands the term "financial institution" so as to include travel agencies and car dealers, casinos and hotels, real estate and insurance agents and lawyers, news stands and pawn brokers, and even the Post Office.
Now, without you knowing it, the Justice Department can learn where you traveled, what you spent, what you ate, what you paid to finance your car and your house, what you confided to your lawyer and insurance and real estate agents, and what periodicals you read without having to demonstrate any evidence or even suspicion of criminal activity on your part. And the government can now, for the first time in American history, without obtaining the approval of a court, read your mail before you do, and prosecute you on the basis of what it reads. (Of course, if the government doesn't prosecute you, you'll likely never even know that it has invaded your privacy.)
None of this was supposed to have happened. The tools Congress gave to intelligence agencies are only constitutional when used just for intelligence purposes -- like watching or deporting foreign spies -- and only against genuine foreign threats. When criminal prosecution is implicated, the Constitution's protections are triggered.
Most Americans don't want the government to know of their personal behavior, not because we have anything to hide, but because without probable cause, without some demonstrable evidence of some personal criminal behavior, the Constitution declares that our personal lives are none of the federal government's business.
Government is not reason or eloquence, George Washington once said, it is force. That's why we have a Constitution: to restrain the government's exercise of force so we can be a free people. Government surveillance undermines freedom because it is natural to hesitate to exercise freedom when the government is watching and recording. Numerous Supreme Court decisions have underscored this by holding that freedom needs breathing room. With the government's eyes in our hotel rooms, lawyers' offices and mailboxes, freedom will suffocate. ~Andrew P. Napolitano
Now, without you knowing it, the Justice Department can learn where you traveled, what you spent, what you ate, what you paid to finance your car and your house, what you confided to your lawyer and insurance and real estate agents, and what periodicals you read without having to demonstrate any evidence or even suspicion of criminal activity on your part. And the government can now, for the first time in American history, without obtaining the approval of a court, read your mail before you do, and prosecute you on the basis of what it reads. (Of course, if the government doesn't prosecute you, you'll likely never even know that it has invaded your privacy.)
None of this was supposed to have happened. The tools Congress gave to intelligence agencies are only constitutional when used just for intelligence purposes -- like watching or deporting foreign spies -- and only against genuine foreign threats. When criminal prosecution is implicated, the Constitution's protections are triggered.
Most Americans don't want the government to know of their personal behavior, not because we have anything to hide, but because without probable cause, without some demonstrable evidence of some personal criminal behavior, the Constitution declares that our personal lives are none of the federal government's business.
Government is not reason or eloquence, George Washington once said, it is force. That's why we have a Constitution: to restrain the government's exercise of force so we can be a free people. Government surveillance undermines freedom because it is natural to hesitate to exercise freedom when the government is watching and recording. Numerous Supreme Court decisions have underscored this by holding that freedom needs breathing room. With the government's eyes in our hotel rooms, lawyers' offices and mailboxes, freedom will suffocate. ~Andrew P. Napolitano