Can you BELIEVE this NYTimes title? " Making a Mountain Out of a Digital Molehill"

[sailingaway]

ATLANTA — THE revelations this week that the federal government has been scooping up records of telephone calls inside the United States for seven years, and secretly collecting information from Internet companies on foreigners overseas for nearly six years, have elicited predictable outrage from liberals and civil libertarians.

well, excuuuuuuse me!

comments are not allowed so don't bother giving him traffic, it doesn't get better. If I COULD comment I would mention that the Constitution requires people be secure in their papers and effects (including EVERYTHING of which digital data is a thing). And requires no warrant shall issue except that 'describe with particularity' the item to be seized. Not the UNIVERSE of item type to be seized from EVERYONE.


h xxp://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/opinion/making-a-mountain-out-of-a-digital-molehill.html?_r=0

[TheTexan]

If I COULD comment I would mention that the Constitution requires people be secure in their papers and effects

I'm sure the Supreme court at some point previously gave it the OK. Which makes it Constitutional, because the Supreme court tells you its constitutional.

It's nearly pointless to argue whether anything is "Constitutional" anymore.

[Anti Federalist]

Pointless to comment or even argue with such a mindset.

There is nothing that government could do, that would elicit a negative response from someone as brain damaged as this:


In short, I think I will take my chances and trust the three branches of government involved in the Verizon request to look out for my interest. Privacy advocates, civil libertarians, small-government activists and liberal media organizations are, of course, are welcome to continue working to keep them honest. But I will move back to my daily activities, free from paranoid concerns that my government is spying on me.

And of course, where is this guy spreading his poison? In academia, teaching the next generation compliance and subservience.

Now you know, how in every nation and culture, from Ancient Egypt, to MesoAmerica, to the horrors of the total state in the 20th century...now you know how these things came to pass: the genocides, mass graves, gulags, killing fields, now you know how they happened right under the noses of the people, often with their full support.

Because of assholes...Just. Like. This.

[Christian Liberty]

I'm ready to duke it out with college professors next year if and when necessary. I'm glad I have people like you guys to help me out and help me to keep growing:)

[better-dead-than-fed]

there is no constitutionally protected reasonable expectation of privacy in the numbers dialed into a telephone system and hence no search within the fourth amendment is implicated

Smith v. Maryland, 442 US 735 - Supreme Court 1979 (http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3033726127475530815).

The DOJ contends that secretly reading our email isn't a "search" under the Fourth Amendment, because we should have no "expectation of privacy". Katz v. United States, 389 US 347 - Supreme Court 1967 (http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=9210492700696416594).

The Sixth Circuit disagrees with the DOJ on this, US v. Warshak, 631 F. 3d 266 - Court of Appeals, 6th Circuit 2010 (http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1170760837547673255), but other Circuits have not decided.

[better-dead-than-fed]

I'm sure the Supreme court at some point previously gave it the OK. Which makes it Constitutional, because the Supreme court tells you its constitutional.

It's nearly pointless to argue whether anything is "Constitutional" anymore.

Despite the Supreme Court, people could still amend the Fourth Amendment to explicitly protect things the Supreme Court doesn't want to protect. Plus, imprison anyone who violates the Fourth Amendment; until then, it's kind of a joke.

[sailingaway]

I'm sure the Supreme court at some point previously gave it the OK. Which makes it Constitutional, because the Supreme court tells you its constitutional.

It's nearly pointless to argue whether anything is "Constitutional" anymore.


I think plain meaning is plain meaning.

And I think not defending the Constitution gives up a shield we should strengthen. The American public OVERWHELMINGLY supports the Constitution.

They just turn their brains off.

[RM918]

There's absolutely no excuse for the US Government that will surprise me anymore. They could start interning US Muslims and there's some sycophant that will screech about national security.

[Weston White]

So this dolt wrote a book about counterterrorism and still he fails to realize that the scope of the Patriot Act bears on preventing foreign terrorism from finding its way onto American soil and not on data-mining the private lives of Americans en masse? The point here which the author blissfully misses is that the government has obtained this information, which it will then store FOREVER, and may then use it against you at their discretion.

Regardless, didn’t it come out a few years back that terrorist leaders were using throw away phones, bypass couriers, and alternating contact points? So such tactics would really only serve to remain fruitless. Aside from the fact that new-age terrorism is actually government spawned and funded anyway—as a medium to further advance their political, financial, and eugenicist agendas on a global scale.


But I will move back to my daily activities, free from paranoid concerns that my government is spying on me.

I bet you will, but only because it is no longer just a “paranoid concern”, it is now our reality. You pompous ass!

[FrankRep]

Flashback - 2009

This is business as usual for the New York Times.



How the New York Times Helped Tyrants (http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/history/item/4754-how-the-new-york-times-helped-tyrants)


Thomas R. Eddlem | The New American (http://www.thenewamerican.com/)
26 June 2009


The New York Times may have a reputation as America’s premiere newspaper, but it also has a well-deserved reputation among informed Americans as a flunky for every big-government scheme that ever came down the pike. Moreover, New York Times' reporters on the scene in Russia and Cuba repeatedly put out false stories benefiting Stalin and Castro, two of the most tyrannical dictators of modern times.

The New York Times’ affair with false reporting on behalf of totalitarianism is far more serious than than Jayson Blair's plagiarisms and fabrications in various stories (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayson_Blair) in 2002-03, or even last year's admission that the daily newspaper's reporters had committed three different instances of plagiarism (http://www.regrettheerror.com/regret-articles/2008-plagiarismfabrication-round-up) (plus an instance where they republished a complete fabrication (http://www.regrettheerror.com/regret-articles/2008-plagiarismfabrication-round-up)).

Ukrainian Famine Fakery

Decades ago, New York Times reporter Walter Duranty served as the primary American press cover for a holocaust in the Ukraine that cost some 7-10 million lives. Called “holodomor” in Ukrainian (“death by hunger”), the 1932-33 famine was caused when Joseph Stalin ordered all the grain in the nation of Ukraine confiscated for the Soviet Union to export.

Duranty misinformed New York Times readers that "any report of a famine is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda." Meanwhile, British journalists Malcolm Muggeridge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Muggeridge) and Gareth Jones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gareth_Jones_(journalist)) courageously reported the truth of the state-managed famine. Muggeridge labeled Duranty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty) “the greatest liar I have met in journalism,” but Soviet dictator (and famine architect) Joseph Stalin praised him because, in Stalin’s words on Christmas day 1933 (http://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/24/opinion/the-editorial-notebook-trenchcoats-then-and-now.html), “You have done a good job in your reporting the U.S.S.R.”

For his lies on behalf of Stalin, Duranty was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and remained a New York Times correspondent until 1940. For more information on the Ukrainian famine, watch the video below or see The New American’s “Duranty’s Lethal Lies.” (http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/history/item/4652-durantys-lethal-lies) Also, it’s worth noting that the New York Times is still ignoring the Ukrainian famine. (See “Ukrainian Genocide: NY Times Still Covering Up (http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/8407-ukrainian-genocide-ny-times-still-covering-up)” for more information.)


The New York Times and the Ukrainian Famine


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1B4eTCsXcc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1B4eTCsXcc


Covering for Castro

Not all of the New York Times’ lies on behalf of socialist dictators are outside of living memory. While the Times’ Duranty was covering for Stalin in Moscow, New York Times Reporter Herbert Matthews helped cover for the communist side of the Spanish Civil War in Spain during the 1930s. Matthews ignored massacres of thousands of Catholic priests and nuns by the so-called “Republican” forces (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Terror_(Spain)) that were backed by Stalin.

After the Second World War, the New York Times stationed Matthews in Cuba, where Matthews assisted Fidel Castro's rise to power by glorifying the future dictator. Matthews told New York Times readers on February 24, 1957 that Castro "has strong ideas of liberty, democracy, social justice.” The following day he reported that “there is no communism to speak of in Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement.”

The main problem with such claims was not simply that we now know they weren't true, but rather that well-informed people already knew them to be false. For example, John Birch Society Founder Robert Welch wrote in September 1958: “Now the evidence from Castro's whole past, that he is a Communist agent carrying out Communist orders and plans, is overwhelming.” That was three months before Castro came to power. The evidence of Castro’s communist connections (see here (http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/history/item/4688-50th-anniversary-of-castros-rise-to-power-in-cuba) for more details on this) were well known at the time by anyone who had followed Cuba carefully.

But even after Castro came to power, Matthews continued his service on behalf of Castro. For example, July 16, 1959 — seven months after Castro’s rise to power — Matthews continued to tell New York Times readers Castro wasn’t a communist: “There are no Reds in the Cabinet and none in high positions in the Government or army in the sense of being able to control either governmental or defense policies. The only power worth considering in Cuba is in the hands of Premier Castro, who is not only not Communist but decidedly anti-Communist....”

Castro’s right-hand man in the communist revolution, Che Guevara, said of Matthews after the revolution (http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43b/103.html) “At that time the presence of a foreign journalist-preferably from the Untied States-was more important to us than a military victory.”

For more information on Matthews’ — and the New York Times — service on behalf of Castro, see the video below


How the New York Times Helped Fidel Castro


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIKR2OKbGKI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIKR2OKbGKI


The New York Times prides itself on publishing “All the news that’s fit to print,” but much of what it has printed over the years was false and therefore not fit to print.

[sailingaway]

Smith v. Maryland, 442 US 735 - Supreme Court 1979 (http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3033726127475530815).

The DOJ contends that secretly reading our email isn't a "search" under the Fourth Amendment, because we should have no "expectation of privacy". Katz v. United States, 389 US 347 - Supreme Court 1967 (http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=9210492700696416594).

The Sixth Circuit disagrees with the DOJ on this, US v. Warshak, 631 F. 3d 266 - Court of Appeals, 6th Circuit 2010 (http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1170760837547673255), but other Circuits have not decided.

They are wrong.

[better-dead-than-fed]

They are wrong.

Smith v. Maryland, 442 US 735 - Supreme Court 1979 (http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3033726127475530815)


Mr. JUSTICE STEWART, with whom MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN joins, dissenting.

I am not persuaded that the numbers dialed from a private telephone fall outside the constitutional protection of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. ...

Mr. JUSTICE MARSHALL, with whom Mr. JUSTICE BRENNAN joins, dissenting.

The Court concludes that because individuals have no actual or legitimate expectation of privacy in information they voluntarily relinquish to telephone companies, the use of pen registers by government agents is immune from Fourth Amendment scrutiny. Since I remain convinced that constitutional protections are not abrogated whenever a person apprises another of facts valuable in criminal investigations, ... I respectfully dissent. ...

[Antischism]

This is a better NYT article by the editorial board, not some random opinion piece.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/opinion/president-obamas-dragnet.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&

[amy31416]

I'm starting to wonder if all these stories are coming out now because it helps the gov't sift through the data and combine all their sources to pick out new "domestic terrorist" targets.

Now they have the capability to do it. These stories piss people off (ones with brains, anyways.) And this way they can use their supercomputers to see who hits what articles, what comments they leave, (eventually) what calls they make, etc. When the computer sifts through all the background noise, they can find all those "terrorists" they need to carry out whatever their endgame is.

It's pretty easy to manipulate to tell whatever story they want.

[green73]

They are nothing more than stenographers for the state. People need to become like citizens in Soviet Russia with Pravda and laugh at them.

[green73]

I'm starting to wonder if all these stories are coming out now because it helps the gov't sift through the data and combine all their sources to pick out new "domestic terrorist" targets.

Now they have the capability to do it. These stories piss people off (ones with brains, anyways.) And this way they can use their supercomputers to see who hits what articles, what comments they leave, (eventually) what calls they make, etc. When the computer sifts through all the background noise, they can find all those "terrorists" they need to carry out whatever their endgame is.

It's pretty easy to manipulate to tell whatever story they want.

When the SHTF this will have given them the lists they need to round up the "problemed citzens".

[enhanced_deficit]

Flashback - 2009

This is business as usual for the New York Times.



How the New York Times Helped Tyrants (http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/history/item/4754-how-the-new-york-times-helped-tyrants)


Thomas R. Eddlem | The New American (http://www.thenewamerican.com/)
26 June 2009

...

Although NYT is sometimes called Queen of Media Prostitutes, many are aware of their fakery to help spread bogus Iraq WMD claims to pave the way for Iraq freedom invasion, costs for which our great grandchildren's kids will be paying for.


Lie by Lie: A Timeline of How We Got Into Iraq | Mother Jones (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/12/leadup-iraq-war-timeline)

www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/.../leadup- (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/.../leadup-)iraq-war-timelin...‎

It is also shared by far too many in the Fourth Estate, most notably the New York Times' Judith Miller. But let us not forget that it lies, inescapably, with we the ...

Judith Miller's WMD reporting - New York Times war reporting - Hunt ... (http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/)

nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/‎

Judith Miller discusses post-Saddam Iraq on The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer. ... was possible to detect a bit of this spirit on the front page of the New York Times.

Disgraced NYT Iraq War Reporter Judith Miller (http://www.businessinsider.com/disgraced-nyt-war-reporter-judith-miller-joins-conservative-mag-newsmax-2010-12)

www.businessinsider.com/disgraced- (http://www.businessinsider.com/disgraced-)nyt-war-reporter-judith-miller-joins-...‎
Dec 29, 2010 – Judith Miller can count Sarah Palin among her readers.

[Occam's Banana]

What's not to believe? This is standard operating procedure. (See the Rothbard quote below.)


And of course, where is this guy spreading his poison? In academia, teaching the next generation compliance and subservience.

Now you know, how in every nation and culture, from Ancient Egypt, to MesoAmerica, to the horrors of the total state in the 20th century...now you know how these things came to pass, how they happened right under the noses of the people, often with their full support.

Because of assholes...Just. Like. This.

AF could not possibly be more correct about this.

In all places and all ages, fists and swords and guns (or threats to use them) are NOT the primary tools of the State (though they are all-too-frequently resorted to by the State). I wish they were. If it was merely a matter of opposing the State's [threats of] application of physical force, things might be rather different from what they actually are today.

The simple fact is that the intelligentsia are (and always have been) the primary transmission belt for indoctrination in and submission to the State and its desired policies. As a result, the State rarely needs even to [threaten to] apply force. Cozened by so-called "intellectuals" (such as the court apologist hack in the OP), people readily submit to the outrages perpetrated upon them by the State.

You will not find a more incisive analysis of the critical importance of "intellectuals" to the State than that offered by Murray Rothbard.

From Anatomy of the State (Chapter 3 - under "How the State Preserves Itself" - footnotes elided): http://mises.org/easaran/chap3.asp


[To obtain the consent of the majority], the majority must be persuaded by ideology that their government is good, wise and, at least, inevitable, and certainly better than other conceivable alternatives. Promoting this ideology among the people is the vital social task of the "intellectuals." For the masses of men do not create their own ideas, or indeed think through these ideas independently; they follow passively the ideas adopted and disseminated by the body of intellectuals. The intellectuals are, therefore, the "opinion-molders" in society. And since it is precisely a molding of opinion that the State most desperately needs, the basis for age-old alliance between the State and the intellectuals becomes clear.

It is evident that the State needs the intellectuals; it is not so evident why intellectuals need the State. Put simply, we may state that the intellectual's livelihood in the free market is never too secure; for the intellectual must depend on the values and choices of the masses of his fellow men, and it is precisely characteristic of the masses that they are generally uninterested in intellectual matters. The State, on the other hand, is willing to offer the intellectuals a secure and permanent berth in the State apparatus; and thus a secure income and the panoply of prestige. For the intellectuals will be handsomely rewarded for the important function they perform for the State rulers, of which group they now become a part.

The alliance between the State and the intellectuals was symbolized in the eager desire of professors at the University of Berlin in the nineteenth century to form the "intellectual bodyguard of the House of Hohenzollern." In the present day, let us note the revealing comment of an eminent Marxist scholar concerning Professor Wittfogel's critical study of ancient Oriental despotism: "The civilization which Professor Wittfogel is so bitterly attacking was one which could make poets and scholars into officials." Of innumerable examples, we may cite the recent development of the "science" of strategy, in the service of the government's main violence-wielding arm, the military. A venerable institution, furthermore, is the official or "court" historian, dedicated to purveying the rulers' views of their own and their predecessors' actions.

Many and varied have been the arguments by which the State and its intellectuals have induced their subjects to support their rule. Basically, the strands of argument may be summed up as follows: (a) the State rulers are great and wise men (they "rule by divine right," they are the "aristocracy" of men, they are the "scientific experts"), much greater and wiser than the good but rather simple subjects, and (b) rule by the extent government is inevitable, absolutely necessary, and far better, than the indescribable evils that would ensue upon its downfall. The union of Church and State was one of the oldest and most successful of these ideological devices. The ruler was either anointed by God or, in the case of the absolute rule of many Oriental despotisms, was himself God; hence, any resistance to his rule would be blasphemy. The States' priestcraft performed the basic intellectual function of obtaining popular support and even worship for the rulers.

[... followed by much more on the particular techniques employed by intellectuals on behalf of the State ...]

[TER]

Yes, unfortunately I can believe this is a NYTimes title. :(

[Anti Federalist]

The simple fact is that the intelligentsia are (and always have been) the primary transmission belt for indoctrination in and submission to the State and its desired policies. As a result, the State rarely needs even to [threaten to] apply force. Cozened by so-called "intellectuals" (such as the court apologist hack in the OP), people readily submit to the outrages perpetrated upon them by the State.

The threat and use of force is usually just reserved for "mopping up" operations against the small minority of partisans, refuseniks and rebels in a vanquished or subjugated society.

That's us, by the way.

[TER]

The threat and use of force is usually just reserved for "mopping up" operations against the small minority of partisans, refuseniks and rebels in a vanquished or subjugated society.

That's us, by the way.

Yeah, but when the abuse is so blatant, then I accept and welcome the consequences. They can take my body, but they will not take my spirit!!!!!!!!!!

[TER]

When you finally know, and it is accepted, it changes one's thinking forever after that. To have assumed, but now to know.... it is a world of a difference. These recent scandals will change the landscape forever. The Mayans were on to something after all. There is a great awakening right now, a rebirth of civilization. These recent revelations should not bring one despair, but rather hope! I would despair if these things were still unknown and kept hidden. A thought like that brings me anxiety. But now that it is in the open, to have it exposed to the light, I have lost all anxiety and stand more resolute then before to uphold that which is accordance to the truth!

[DamianTV]

Here is the problem: Only the Big Boys want other Big Boys to be allowed access to all this data collected and sold on and about you. Mundanes need not apply.

[Anti Federalist]

////

[Anti Federalist]

And as always left unsaid...who are the terrorists?

I have zero concern that a "rabid jihadist" is going to storm my home in the middle of the night, grenade my kids and shoot me dead.

I have a much greater chance statistically, and it is much greater concern of mine, that a troika of FedCoats, state and local "law enforcement" might do just that.

[Occam's Banana]

The threat and use of force is usually just reserved for "mopping up" operations against the small minority of partisans, refuseniks and rebels in a vanquished or subjugated society.

That's us, by the way.

Precisely so.


And as always left unsaid...who are the terrorists?

I have zero concern that a "rabid jihadist" is going to storm my home in the middle of the night, grenade my kids and shoot me dead.

I have a much greater chance statistically, and it is much greater concern of mine, that a troika of FedCoats, state and local "law enforcement" might do just that.

Nutshells: they just don't get any more concise than this.

[anaconda]

I'm sure the Supreme court at some point previously gave it the OK. Which makes it Constitutional, because the Supreme court tells you its constitutional.

It's nearly pointless to argue whether anything is "Constitutional" anymore.

And no one ever has "standing" so cases always get thrown out.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwABrM3x_Vk

[TheTexan]

And as always left unsaid...who are the terrorists?


you

[Weston White]

I was trying to recall a relevent quote to include in this thread, though had it misplaced in my head—I kept thinking it was by a Forefather, but is was actually a SCOTUS case referring to our Forefathers, so I found it now and here it is, in all its glory (truly this is such a great quotation):

Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 478-479 (1928): “The protection guaranteed by the Amendments is much broader in scope. The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man's spiritual nature, of his feelings, and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone -- the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the Government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment. And the use, as evidence in a criminal proceeding, of facts ascertained by such intrusion must be deemed a violation of the Fifth.

… Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”

[LibertyEagle]

I'm sure the Supreme court at some point previously gave it the OK. Which makes it Constitutional, because the Supreme court tells you its constitutional.



No it doesn't. It just makes them traitorous a**h***s.

[noneedtoaggress]

What's not to believe? This is standard operating procedure. (See the Rothbard quote below.)


And of course, where is this guy spreading his poison? In academia, teaching the next generation compliance and subservience.

Now you know, how in every nation and culture, from Ancient Egypt, to MesoAmerica, to the horrors of the total state in the 20th century...now you know how these things came to pass, how they happened right under the noses of the people, often with their full support.

Because of assholes...Just. Like. This.

AF could not possibly be more correct about this.

In all places and all ages, fists and swords and guns (or threats to use them) are NOT the primary tools of the State (though they are all-too-frequently resorted to by the State). I wish they were. If it was merely a matter of opposing the State's [threats of] application of physical force, things might be rather different from what they actually are today.

The simple fact is that the intelligentsia are (and always have been) the primary transmission belt for indoctrination in and submission to the State and its desired policies. As a result, the State rarely needs even to [threaten to] apply force. Cozened by so-called "intellectuals" (such as the court apologist hack in the OP), people readily submit to the outrages perpetrated upon them by the State.

You will not find a more incisive analysis of the critical importance of "intellectuals" to the State than that offered by Murray Rothbard.

From Anatomy of the State (Chapter 3 - under "How the State Preserves Itself" - footnotes elided): http://mises.org/easaran/chap3.asp


[To obtain the consent of the majority], the majority must be persuaded by ideology that their government is good, wise and, at least, inevitable, and certainly better than other conceivable alternatives. Promoting this ideology among the people is the vital social task of the "intellectuals." For the masses of men do not create their own ideas, or indeed think through these ideas independently; they follow passively the ideas adopted and disseminated by the body of intellectuals. The intellectuals are, therefore, the "opinion-molders" in society. And since it is precisely a molding of opinion that the State most desperately needs, the basis for age-old alliance between the State and the intellectuals becomes clear.

It is evident that the State needs the intellectuals; it is not so evident why intellectuals need the State. Put simply, we may state that the intellectual's livelihood in the free market is never too secure; for the intellectual must depend on the values and choices of the masses of his fellow men, and it is precisely characteristic of the masses that they are generally uninterested in intellectual matters. The State, on the other hand, is willing to offer the intellectuals a secure and permanent berth in the State apparatus; and thus a secure income and the panoply of prestige. For the intellectuals will be handsomely rewarded for the important function they perform for the State rulers, of which group they now become a part.

The alliance between the State and the intellectuals was symbolized in the eager desire of professors at the University of Berlin in the nineteenth century to form the "intellectual bodyguard of the House of Hohenzollern." In the present day, let us note the revealing comment of an eminent Marxist scholar concerning Professor Wittfogel's critical study of ancient Oriental despotism: "The civilization which Professor Wittfogel is so bitterly attacking was one which could make poets and scholars into officials." Of innumerable examples, we may cite the recent development of the "science" of strategy, in the service of the government's main violence-wielding arm, the military. A venerable institution, furthermore, is the official or "court" historian, dedicated to purveying the rulers' views of their own and their predecessors' actions.

Many and varied have been the arguments by which the State and its intellectuals have induced their subjects to support their rule. Basically, the strands of argument may be summed up as follows: (a) the State rulers are great and wise men (they "rule by divine right," they are the "aristocracy" of men, they are the "scientific experts"), much greater and wiser than the good but rather simple subjects, and (b) rule by the extent government is inevitable, absolutely necessary, and far better, than the indescribable evils that would ensue upon its downfall. The union of Church and State was one of the oldest and most successful of these ideological devices. The ruler was either anointed by God or, in the case of the absolute rule of many Oriental despotisms, was himself God; hence, any resistance to his rule would be blasphemy. The States' priestcraft performed the basic intellectual function of obtaining popular support and even worship for the rulers.

[... followed by much more on the particular techniques employed by intellectuals on behalf of the State ...]



You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Occam's Banana again. :(

[better-dead-than-fed]

I was trying to recall a relevent quote to include in this thread, though had it misplaced in my head—I kept thinking it was by a Forefather, but is was actually a SCOTUS case referring to our Forefathers, so I found it now and here it is, in all its glory (truly this is such a great quotation):

Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 478-479 (1928): “The protection guaranteed by the Amendments is much broader in scope. The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man's spiritual nature, of his feelings, and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone -- the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the Government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment. And the use, as evidence in a criminal proceeding, of facts ascertained by such intrusion must be deemed a violation of the Fifth.

… Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”

That quote is by Justice Brandeis, dissenting in the case you cited, Olmstead v. United States, 277 US 438 - Supreme Court 1928 (http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=5577544660194763070). In that case, the majority held that wiretapping phones does not violate the Fourth Amendment. The Court later overturned that ruling, in the Katz case (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?417027-Can-you-BELIEVE-this-NYTimes-title-quot-Making-a-Mountain-Out-of-a-Digital-Molehill-quot&p=5063231&viewfull=1#post5063231). Katz didn't fix everything though, leaving the government arguably free to read telephone "metadata" and email.

In his dissent, Brandeis also warned:


If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; ... it invites anarchy.

To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means — to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal — would bring terrible retribution.

Tim McVeigh's colloquy at sentencing was brief:


THE COURT: Mr. McVeigh, you have the right to make any statement you wish to make....

THE DEFENDANT: ... I wish to use the words of Justice Brandeis dissenting in Olmstead to speak for me. He wrote, "Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example." That's all I have.

[Weston White]

Yet also noteworthy, was the follow-up by Justice Holmes:


“My brother BRANDEIS has given this case so exhaustive an examination that I desire to add but a few words. While I do not deny it, I am not prepared to say that the penumbra of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments covers the defendant, although I fully agree that Courts are apt to err by sticking too closely to the words of a law where those words import a policy that goes beyond them. … But I think, as MR. JUSTICE BRANDEIS says, that apart from the Constitution the Government ought not to use evidence obtained and only obtainable by a criminal act. There is no body of precedents by which we are bound, and which confines us to logical deduction from established rules. Therefore we must consider the two objects of desire, both of which we cannot have, and make up our minds which to choose. It is desirable that criminals should be detected, and to that end that all available evidence should be used. It also is desirable that the Government should not itself foster and pay for other crimes, when they are the means by which the evidence is to be obtained. If it pays its officers for having got evidence by crime I do not see why it may not as well pay them for getting it in the same way, and I can attach no importance to protestations of disapproval if it knowingly accepts and pays and announces that in the future it will pay for the fruits. We have to chose, and for my part I think it a less evil that some criminals should escape than that the Government should play an ignoble part.

For those who agree with me, no distinction can be taken between the Government as prosecutor and the Government as judge. If the existing code does not permit district attorneys to have a hand in such dirty business it does not permit the judge to allow such iniquities to succeed. … I have said that we are free to choose between two principles of policy. But if we are to confine ourselves to precedent and logic the reason for excluding evidence obtained by violating the Constitution seems to me logically to lead to excluding evidence obtained by a crime of the officers of the law.”