Holier-than-thou virtue-signaling on the left?

[Mecha82]

Well Benjamin Franklin did once say that "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." That said whole using after terrorism with Patriot Act has only been about Islamic terrorism while all other forms of terrorism have been ignored. Plus people being willing to accept that means that terrorists have won since that's they goal. To make people afraid. That's why they are called terrorists. It's in they name.

[Yukaphile]

There is no such thing as total liberty or total security. So the question is, where do you bend on this issue? For me, I have no issue with information obtained spying on the people illegally, which includes me, only so long as you are not charged for that information, and that it's only in the pursuit of something truly important. Protecting us from terrorism and hostile nations. Looking into my files would reveal I am NOT a traitor to those forces. But even so, I'd strongly object to them charging me on some lesser, secondary thing from the information obtained, which is possible in a political climate. "Charge this guy so he doesn't vote for the other party next year!" Even so, it's still a damned slippery slope argument. You pick your battles where you can.

[Riedquat]

No objection to being spied on illegally? Have some respect for yourself!

We can argue exactly where the line should be drawn on what laws there should be, any law being a move from the extreme. Concentrating on extremes is usually only helpful when you need to point out to people that they have to make a decision sooner or later, they're usually the type of person who appears to equate anything that doesn't align with their position as equal.

Anyway, back to the point... any illegal spying on anyone definitely crosses the line. It's another aspect of innocent until proven guilty. There need to be very strict limits on what can be done without any particular grounds of suspicion (so no collecting data on everyone). If it doesn't pass the "mind you own business" test it can get lost. And I'm prepared to have what's really a very small additional risk to my life for that (people have pretty poor risk perception when it comes to things like being blown up by terrorists).

[Yukaphile]

Well, it's a dangerous world, isn't it? :shrug:

[Yukaphile]

I don't mind government spying on me to protect me. I would dislike it if they, like, charged me on scurrilous reasons based on something they got spying on me motivated by political reasons or misguided immorality. The latter is prone to happen, sure. But it's still nevertheless a slippery slope argument.

[Admiral X]

To "protect" you.

[Yukaphile]

Did the part where I openly admitted to "not always" escape you, or like many right of center Libertarians, do you think ALL parts of the big bad strawman of The Government is out to get you?

[Admiral X]

Keep making excuses for being okay with the government spying on Americans in complete violation of our rights. It really is precious that you think it's to "protect" us.

[Yukaphile]

Rights are an intangible thing. According to you, we ALL have the right, nay, a DUTY to a gun! Except, not to safety from enemies trying to kill us, it seems.

Times change. Collecting a large data sphere is fine. Abusing that to hit citizens with trumped-up charges for political or selfish reasons is not.

[Admiral X]

Yeah, it's just fine to disarm citizens and to spy on them.