Freedom or Security? If You Had to Choose…

The choice is clear for me, Constitutional Liberty.

‘Give me liberty or give me death.’ It’s pretty simple.

I’ll preface My statement by saying that I re-enlisted in the national Guard the day after 911, Having said that, Anything that was done following 911 was done for the security of our great Nation and any measures that were taken were well worth it. I Know that people will complain that their “civil liberties have been infringed upon” but the fact is they have not. If the C.I.A and The F.B.I need to wire tap phone lines or use othe means of spying on terrorists the so be it. I’m not into anything illegal or undehanded so I have nothing to fear from their listening.That is on the completely rediculous assumption that they would even bother to listen to phone calls or use any other means of survallince unless that they didn’t feel they had a good reason to. In Short The Security and intelligence agencies are here to protect the American people. I feel Very safe knowing that they will use any means nessecary to seek out and punish those that are a threat to my family and Our way of life. in closure I am all for liberty I have sworn to uphold and protect the Constitution, The ” violations ” of which you speak in my mind do not exist and are simply the Democrats Bush Bashing. They Do Not like Him they are still angry that he was elected President…. Twice, and they will continue to find fault where no fault exists and find controversy where no real controversy exists. SO sleep easy My friend Your rights are safe and thanks to the C.I.A, F.B.I, N.S.N, and all the other agencies So is the rest of you.

The founding principle of the United States is not trust, Eric. Our elected officials are not entitled to the benefit of the doubt.

This May Well be true, But as a soldier I Know ALL to Well that there are Many things that the American people do not need to know,and if they do know “these secrets” it puts the lives of the people sworn to protect them at great risk. When this happens it also puts the american people at great risk for an attack. Freedom of Speech is a right given to the people by the constitution but one cannot shout FIRE! in a theatre full of people, It puts lives at risk. In the same token The Press shouldn’t have an all access pass to the Security Agencies work place, It Puts Lives at risk when the press shouts security secrets to the world.In the Military there are many things I don’t know simply because I don’t need to know to acomplish the mission. The More people that know something the Greater the risk that ones enemies will have the information. SO you are essentially correct trust was not absolutly a founding principle of th constitution but it is essential for the running of a govenment, ANY government. and there will Always have to be secrets to protect the security of a Free State.

If memory serves, Nate, you are strongly opposed to several of the secret programs that the NYT revealed; do you nevertheless prefer the media not to expose such information on the off-chance it could have an adverse effect on national security?

Ok. So congress should have oversight, but the people they represent shouldn’t see certain sensitive information. But representative government only works if the citizenry is informed about their representatives’ political conduct, and can thus decide their vote in the next election based on said conduct in the previous term. If this kind of information isn’t declassified until decades, even as much as a half-century later, our vote is not truly informed; we will be unable to factor the quality of oversight of these classified government proceedings into our vote. A major strength in our system of checks and balances is that officials in different branches of government take office in different ways. If the integrity of a politician’s oversight of key secret programs is never an issue in his election, isn’t that a problem?