RIGHTFUL LIBERTY

For my English class on Monday, we were to read three articles, one of which was on racial profiling after 9/11. As you can guess, it was mainly geared towards Arabs and centered around airport security dealings. We, as a class, openly discussed it. Everyone agreed that racial profiling is wrong. No surprise there. The other general consensus was that it's good to have stricter security measures to ensure safety. Everyone seemed to be cool with some people losing civil liberties for the greater good of the many. That's when I started to frown.

The discussion then evolved into security as a nation. Is it OK for the government to tap our phones, scan our emails and have video surveillance watching us at all times? I thought for sure there would be an uproar… but there wasn't. I was the only person, out of sixteen people, who didn't agree with Uncle Sam encroaching on our liberties. The overall mantra for the class was, "If the government wants to watch and listen to me, let 'em. I have nothing to hide." I utterly was shocked and appalled.

Even if you are within legal limits, we can't let our freedoms be stripped from us, no matter how minute, subtle, or under what pretenses. Let's say that laws are changed and something integral to your life that was previously legal becomes a punishable offense. If they already have tabs on you then there will be no escape. If it's a law that you don't approve of and you try to challenge it, they can quell your uprising that much easier.

I'm not some conspiracy theory nut that thinks the machine is after me at all times. But living under marshal law is a scary thought. Yes, that's an exaggeration. The question is, if they keep eroding our rights, where does it stop? Where is the cut off? What right is juicy enough to fight for?

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law', because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."
-Thomas Jefferson