Fighting homegrown terrorism by monitoring Internet communications is a civil liberties trade-off the U.S. government must make to beef up national security, the nation’s homeland security chief said Friday.
As terrorists increasingly recruit U.S. citizens, the government needs to constantly balance Americans’ civil rights and privacy with the need to keep people safe, said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
But finding that balance has become more complex as homegrown terrorists have used the Internet to reach out to extremists abroad for inspiration and training. Those contacts have spurred a recent rash of U.S.-based terror plots and incidents.
The problem with her statements is that she has shown by past statements that her definition of home-grown terrorists also includes those in the Tea Party Movement, and pro-life activists, and conservatives in general. So, no, I would not be willing to give up liberties and privacy for her nebulous definitions of terrorism.
Remember, “he who would give up essential liberties for a measure of security deserves neither” (Ben Franklin).
Governments will always opt for the totalitarian solution. Always in toward greater regulation and control.
The irony of this coming out of the current administration is just too rich. The same people who excoriated Bush-Cheney for the Patriot Act and Big Brotherism are now murmuring about the need for “civil liberties tradeoffs.” I’d laugh if I didn’t agree with #1 that the likely targets of such internet monitoring will just as likely be those on their disfavored list (Tea Partiers, pro-lifers, recent veterans, conservatives in general) as jihadists.
When the government fears the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny. We the People haven’t been doing our job raising the fear level in the governing circles. Bi-partisan fear is best. Every politician should be made to understand every election as being akin to his or her very own personal Passover.
I agree #3. The irony is created because the typical liberal mind cannot seem to grasp reality until it punches them in the face. They spend their days trying to force the world to conform to some false ideal they retained from their classroom studies with their liberal academics.
Sometimes a Polly-Annish outlook like that can be quite cute and charming, but in a position of great responsibility it becomes downright dangerous…for all of us.
I’m as conservative as they come but before I pounce on “Big Sis”, I remind myself of the arguments I had with my liberal friends over President Bush’s counter-terrorism bill, particularly over wiretapping. I fully support then as I do now the monitoring of voice communications if it means tracking down terrorists. That doesn’t mean I won’t keep an eye on Big Sis, particularly in how she handles Internet monitoring as #3 clearly puts it.
#6, of course, there is that one tiny little difference between W’s C-TB and that of the Regime. The Regime’s concept of ‘terrorist’ includes the overly-Christian, Tea Party adherents and, basically, anyone that disagrees with the Regime including, quite possibly, you and me, certainly. No kidding. You can look it up here – http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf – it’s only 10 pages.