Let me pose a question to the reader: Do you think the founding fathers would say it's ok for the federal police to have read my e-mail as it traveled though cyberspace? Would they have approved of anyone reading my mail?
The federal government wants the Internet and all telecommunication providers to leave little access points where they can see or listen to anyone's communications. The people they listen to are called "suspects."
Anyone could be a suspect. There are enough laws to make us all guilty of something. So I ask again reader, what do you think the Founding Fathers would have thought?
Remember, those men who wrote and voted for the Constitution and the women who supported them had been harassed by the British. They wanted guaranties of personal freedom from this new government. They knew what unrestrained government police (Red Coats) were capable of. They didn't want to trade one bully for another.
These nation-states first lived under a contract called "The Articles of Confederation." It failed. So they tried a second contract called "The Constitution." They added a personal rights section and it worked. It was a plan for a mutual economic and defense pact between thirteen independent nations. But that government's starting point was that people were smart enough to handle their own affairs. Citizens did not need a government to tell them how to make a living. The government was supposed to get out of the way and let the citizen do as much or as little as the citizen aspired to do. Nowhere in that contract was the federal government granted the right to spy on the citizens of the several states.
Today the citizens rely on the Internet and a telecommunications industry for distribution of private communications. Government wants to make its own use of the system. Once we say it's okay to put in a window on the pipelines of private communication nothing will be private again. Governments know how to use the tools they are given. Give them a window. Someone will look.
It's time the citizens take a close look at government proposals to add listening ports to phone, fax, and Internet lines. We hope the police could the use the technology to stop criminals and never use their power to look at our information. Experience shows that they will look. What would the Founders say?
Do you want government to have the power to look? It's time to vote: Yes or no.
Lee A. Presser
