Former FBI Agent Mark German Discusses Top Threats to Our Civil Liberties After 9/11

How's this for "one for our side": Former Special Agent Mike German, who is now Senior Policy Council for the ACLU, says, "The government has no right to pick through your private information just because that's technologically possible."

He's turned from the dark side of the force to help protect citizens and defend against the federal government's offenses against our 4th Amendment protections and our privacy, and even touches on the disturbing trend of "fusion centers", where local, state, and federal LEOs work together to collect information from citizens to identify possible threats where there may not factually be one.



/TOA

reply to post by The Old American


Respectfully, defense of "civil liberties", which are, by the language of your post, presumably the exclusive province of "citizens", is hardly a win for "our side". Government cannot use technology to deny or disparage the rights of people not because it is statutorily written so, but because they have no legal authority to deny or disparage unalienable rights retained by the people. One need not any citizenship in order to retain these rights, as they exist with or without government. Going into agreement with "civil liberties", which is the same as "civil rights", which is the same as legal rights, and what can be granted to a person legally can legally be taken away. Why anyone possessing unalienable rights would willingly surrender those in exchange for the tenuous legal rights arrogantly granted by government is hard to fathom.

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
reply to post by The Old American

 

Respectfully, defense of "civil liberties", which are, by the language of your post, presumably the exclusive province of "citizens", is hardly a win for "our side". Government cannot use technology to deny or disparage the rights of people not because it is statutorily written so, but because they have no legal authority to deny or disparage unalienable rights retained by the people. One need not any citizenship in order to retain these rights, as they exist with or without government. Going into agreement with "civil liberties", which is the same as "civil rights", which is the same as legal rights, and what can be granted to a person legally can legally be taken away. Why anyone possessing unalienable rights would willingly surrender those in exchange for the tenuous legal rights arrogantly granted by government is hard to fathom.

The federal government can and does disparage the inalienable rights of citizens every day, several times a day. Just because they aren't supposed to doesn't mean that they can't. We aren't given our rights, we are born with them inherent. But they are trampled on by a government so oppressive that China is beginning to look like good guys. Their legal authority to or not to deny our rights is a null value as long as the government allows it to happen.

So, how is a former FBI agent, who was involved with an agency that performs egregious offenses against citizens daily, leaving and working to help defend citizens not a win? At the very least he's able to educate ordinary citizens on their rights and, as a former "insider", teach them how to defend against the intrusion of federal government into their lives.

/TOA

for all intents and purposes i agree with JPZ but there is a difference between civil rights and civil liberties. a simple distinction my old polisci teacher would joke about would be that rights protect us from each other, liberties protect us from the gov't.

Civil Rights vs. Civl Liberties

reply to post by The Old American

The federal government can and does disparage the inalienable rights of citizens every day, several times a day. Just because they aren't supposed to doesn't mean that they can't. We aren't given our rights, we are born with them inherent. But they are trampled on by a government so oppressive that China is beginning to look like good guys. Their legal authority to or not to deny our rights is a null value as long as the government allows it to happen.

The nature of unalienable rights does not guarantee against denial and/or disparagement of those rights. Unalienable does not mean impervious to denial or disparagement, it means non-transferable. I know you understand this and perhaps some may think we are splitting hairs, but we are not. Just because the federal government can and does disparage rights of not just citizens , the government can (as in they are more than physically capable of) and does deny and disparage the rights of People.

In fairness to the former FBI agent, I don't think he limited rights to "civil" rights once, nor did he limit them to "citizens". That language seems to be coming from you. In fairness to freedom, that former FBI agent is now working for the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU has a long history of endeavoring to limit rights to being civil rights, and worse attempting to redefine rights as a being solely collective and not belonging to the individual. The gross hypocrisy of the ACLU can be found in their own website.

Consider first, for a moment, their current slogan:

"Because freedom can't protect itself"

The page I have linked is their "Key Issues" page. Here is what they have to briefly say about that:

The ACLU is our nation's guardian of liberty, working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.

Take note how they claim to be about protection of individual rights...that is, until they disagree with that right. Consider their stance on The Second Amendment:

Given the reference to "a well regulated Militia" and "the security of a free State," the ACLU has long taken the position that the Second Amendment protects a collective right rather than an individual right. For seven decades, the Supreme Court's 1939 decision in United States v. Miller was widely understood to have endorsed that view.

The Supreme Court has now ruled otherwise. In striking down Washington D.C.'s handgun ban by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court's 2008 decision in D.C. v. Heller held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms, whether or not associated with a state militia.

The ACLU disagrees with the Supreme Court's conclusion about the nature of the right protected by the Second Amendment. We do not, however, take a position on gun control itself. In our view, neither the possession of guns nor the regulation of guns raises a civil liberties issue.

The ACLU proudly thumbs their nose at The Supreme Court, (which is, of course, their right to do), and disagrees with the assertion that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right, maintaining their long held belief that the right to keep and bear arms is a "collective" right. They casually shrug their shoulders at the recent SCOTUS rulings declaring them moot as far as their own legal practices go, because when it comes to defending and preserving individual rights, the individual right to keep and bear arms is an issue the ACLU will just not help you with. So there, say they!

It makes sense to me that a former FBI agent would make an easy transition into the ACLU, as that organization appears to have agenda's that only please ambitious government agents. The ACLU smugly declares themselves the protectors of freedom, but doesn't want you to have the individual right to keep and bear arms so that you can protect freedom as well if necessary. This is a contradiction, and realistically speaking, there are no contradictions, just a faulty premise. The ACLU's premise that they are protecting freedom is flawed. For over 60 years this organization has existed and since their birth the United States has only become more tyrannical, not less. Organizations endeavoring to redefine rights as being only "collective" has only helped this rise of tyranny.