Neverending trade of Liberty for Security

The news that has hit the MSM about all of the surveillance that occurs in the US (which by proxy affects the entire world) is hardly news to any regular reader of ATS.

I wanted to start this thread to show how we are at a point that without some kind of major systemic change, we are at a point where things will never get better.

If I may jump to the point, here is the reason:

Anytime liberty is traded for security, the people who advocate such use all evidence for proof of the need for it.

For example, the Boston attacks happen. The Powers that Be argue that we need more power, we need to have more infringements into peoples rights so that we may keep you safe.

However, if we have a sustained period of time with no terrorist attack on US soil, the argument becomes see, the infringements upon your rights is working, we are solving terrorism.

Hence from this point forward if there was not one terrorist attack in the next fifty years, the programs that we have learned about would not be cut back at all because they would be working. And if there are more attacks does that prove these programs are unsuccessful? No, it just shows we need more.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The people we have given these powers to will never relinquish them.

We are already seeing that the excuse for this surveillance is to combat terrorism. The truth of the matter is these programs have been largely unsuccessful at foiling any terrorist plot, with the US government claiming so far it has stopped one plot that they can't release details of.

But isn't it odd that every time you here of the US stopping an attack it is always one that they have setup from the start that they then take credit for stopping?



www.youtube.com...


And take into account that the US government had these programs in place before the Boston attack, but they didn't help at all to stop it. In fact, in spite of all of the police state draconian measures, they were unsuccessful in even apprehending the suspect and it took one alert citizen to do so.

Even more disturbing is that we now see that there was a ton of information about the suspects available to the government about the Boston suspects without these violations of liberty, as there was about the 9/11 hijackers. But the excuse given as to why this info didn't stop the plots was "there is so much information coming in its hard to decipher all of it." Yet they still say they need to spy on everyone even more when they can't handle the info they already have.

Lastly I think it is important to put into perspective why all of our fourth amendments rights are being stripped.

Taking these figures into account, a rough calculation suggests that in the last five years, your chances of being killed by a terrorist are about one in 20 million. This compares annual risk of dying in a car accident of 1 in 19,000; drowning in a bathtub at 1 in 800,000; dying in a building fire at 1 in 99,000; or being struck by lightning at 1 in 5,500,000. In other words, in the last five years you were four times more likely to be struck by lightning than killed by a terrorist.

reason.com...

Trillions of dollars, thousands of lives, and loss of all of our privacy forever to fight something that has less of a chance of killing you as bathing does.

The response of Obama defending the collection of cell phone data from wireless companies indicates that liberty has nothing to do with the choice to move forward with using the collected data against us. The response was ignorant at the least.

He indicated that "we as a society" must give up some freedoms and luxuries if we are to remain safe and protected.

Does anyone here recall voting to have your cell phone information collected as a 'society'? I guess a government of less than 1,000 individuals accounts for what 300,000,000 of us as a 'society' believe. Decision making by government apparently defines the term 'liberty'.

'We The People'... what a joke. More like 'We The Government'.

reply to post by Grambler


Great post. Well thought out.

A couple of observations to add to the discussion:

1. I read once 'the way things are is because those who call the shots want them that way'. If there is any truth to this, and I feel there is, then this giant surveillance apparatus did not seemingly miss the Boston Bombers. Whatever they were doing was not target of this apparatus. Then what is?

2. This trend in erosion of civil liberties is long standing. I would venture to say it is probably the status quo between the government and its people in the US. How have we made it this far then? Are we different in the last few decades than those before?

Yeah, these may be kinda' philosophical and not much red meat but I feel these (and others) are at the heart of the matter you bring up.

Originally posted by ABNARTY
reply to post by Grambler

 

1. I read once 'the way things are is because those who call the shots want them that way'. If there is any truth to this, and I feel there is, then this giant surveillance apparatus did not seemingly miss the Boston Bombers. Whatever they were doing was not target of this apparatus. Then what is?

I would only say this. They have lied to us time and time again in an effort to gain more power. Why then would they not make up or allow such an attack in order to gain even more power.

2. This trend in erosion of civil liberties is long standing. I would venture to say it is probably the status quo between the government and its people in the US. How have we made it this far then? Are we different in the last few decades than those before?

I don't think there is much of a difference. History shows us time and time again that all governments will eventually strive to reap more power and take more and more liberties from people. The amazing thing to me is the arrogance of people that think that our government is differnet than all of those in history, and somehow we are special.

reply to post by Grambler


I do not disagree on the lying on Boston. I know it happened but past that, who knows? There has to some elements of the government who wanted to make sure folks got looked after and the bad guys were brought to justice. Unfortunately, there are also those who look merely to benefit from tragedy. The latter seem to always get ahead because they invest nothing but the machinations of others.

Agreed. All governments DO strive to gain power and hold it. However they do it changes names (democracy, aristocracy, communism, etc) but the end is the same. They all act the same regardless of their label.

No one take away anyones freedom, not even a majority who either aren't waking up fast enough, or perhaps are too busy struggling in the scarsity system, or are afraid to speak up.

In reality you only have to raise your frequency and overcome flaws, and heaviness inside, to allign your inner with outer, conscious world with the subconscious or spirit even. And you hold that frequency and affect others, and see yourself free and safe and everyone waking up.

Its less outer, the fight, the struggle, and more inner. We affect our own corners of the world. This is something I need to practice more myself. But we're not losing freedoms unless we give it away. And if others seem to be doing this, see the opposite. The dark hats need permissions to do things and they cannot overcome the Spirit/Mind/Heart and visions for a free and equal world in even a minority.

All things are Spirit. And Spirits work at growing, cleansing, transforming!

Including politics and economics!

I thought one of the most telling things I saw on this matter was on one of the msm shows (don't remember which one they all blend in to me) where the host was complaining about the NSA wiretapping, and she then said (and I am paraphrasing, "Well now if this would have caught the Boston suspects, then this would be a completely different conversation and we would be willing to accept it".

That seemed almost prophetic to me. If you see the video in my first post about how every terror plot the government foils is one of there own creation, how difficult will it be for them to use PRISM or the phone tapping to stop a terror plot that they have started? Then low and behold, the few people that are angry about these programs will be celebrating them and they can then take the next step in eroding our privacy.