jct74
06-10-2013, 10:50 AM
Big Brother Says, ‘Open Your Mouth!’
Your DNA as well as your data is at risk from overreaching government.
By RAND PAUL • June 10, 2013
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/shutterstock_131812442.jpg
The Bill of Rights is and should be popular. It is something most Americans overwhelmingly support. Conservatives love the Second Amendment and honest progressives defend the First Amendment. But it is sometimes harder for the public to embrace and champion the due process of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth amendments.
Why? Because to defend due process sometimes means defending trials, lawyers, and privacy for people accused of heinous crimes. Understandably, some don’t choose to think about the fact that the worst imaginable people in our society are still guaranteed rights as citizens—the right to trial by jury, the right to an attorney, the right to be free from suspicionless searches.
Who would want to defend the rights of awful rapists and murderers? The easy response is that we defend due process to try to ensure that the person who is punished is guilty of the crime. There have been times in our country’s history when due process was ignored or absent. The lynching of black men in the South is the most egregious. The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II is another stain on our history when we strayed from due process.
Last year, President Obama signed into law a bill that allows for the indefinite detention without charge of an American citizen. When I asked a fellow Senator if this meant that an American citizen could be sent to Guantanamo Bay without charge or jury trial, and be indefinitely detained for the rest of their life, he responded: “If they are dangerous.”
...
read more:
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/big-brother-says-open-your-mouth/
Your DNA as well as your data is at risk from overreaching government.
By RAND PAUL • June 10, 2013
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/shutterstock_131812442.jpg
The Bill of Rights is and should be popular. It is something most Americans overwhelmingly support. Conservatives love the Second Amendment and honest progressives defend the First Amendment. But it is sometimes harder for the public to embrace and champion the due process of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth amendments.
Why? Because to defend due process sometimes means defending trials, lawyers, and privacy for people accused of heinous crimes. Understandably, some don’t choose to think about the fact that the worst imaginable people in our society are still guaranteed rights as citizens—the right to trial by jury, the right to an attorney, the right to be free from suspicionless searches.
Who would want to defend the rights of awful rapists and murderers? The easy response is that we defend due process to try to ensure that the person who is punished is guilty of the crime. There have been times in our country’s history when due process was ignored or absent. The lynching of black men in the South is the most egregious. The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II is another stain on our history when we strayed from due process.
Last year, President Obama signed into law a bill that allows for the indefinite detention without charge of an American citizen. When I asked a fellow Senator if this meant that an American citizen could be sent to Guantanamo Bay without charge or jury trial, and be indefinitely detained for the rest of their life, he responded: “If they are dangerous.”
...
read more:
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/big-brother-says-open-your-mouth/