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Originally Posted by CO Hummer
OK, help me out on this. You are a Marine, right? Isn't one of the fundamentals that you be prepared for the possibility of "bad things" happening even if you hadn't seen them happen?
That's EXACTLY what the founding fathers did when they created safeguards.
For you to say "With no trace of any evidence of abuse, I can't get worried." is unexpected.
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I think a lot of this boils down to our beliefs on (1) certain presumptions and (2) the impact in context of the questioned policies.
(1) You seem to believe that, if the government is in a position to do harm, harm is done. I can't say that you are wrong; only that I disagree. I think that the government will invariiably be in a position to do harm to us all. I only have a problem when they actually do harm. For example, I do not think they should disband the National Guard just because, if an improper order is issued, they might destroy my house and kill my family with a dozen 155 mm artillery rounds. Yet, if they start employing artillery barages against our citizenry's households, I'd express some serious concerns.
(2) I just don't think the Founding Fathers issued safeguards against the government scrutinizing information like our credit histories, which are I think fairly public anyway, especially in wartime. It's just not like quartering soldiers in time of peace in violation of Amendment III to me.
I seriously would be very displeased if the government went over the line. I just haven't seen it, and I'm not going to assume that they are without any single fact (which, see above, I think would come to light if true) in support of this. On the contrary, to me, the gov't seems to be doing a remarkably difficult job of protecting us against attacks.