Most Popular
1. It’s a New Macro, the Gold Market Knows It, But Dead Men Walking Do Not (yet)- Gary_Tanashian
2.Stock Market Presidential Election Cycle Seasonal Trend Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
3. Bitcoin S&P Pattern - Nadeem_Walayat
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
4.U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - Raymond_Matison
5. How to Profit from the Global Warming ClImate Change Mega Death Trend - Part1 - Nadeem_Walayat
7.Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - Nadeem_Walayat
9.It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - Stephen_McBride
10.Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - Richard_Mills
Last 7 days
Trump or Harris - Who Wins US Presidential Election 2024 Forecast Prediction - 5th Nov 24
Stock Market Brief in Count Down to US Election Result 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Gold Stocks’ Winter Rally 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Why Countdown to U.S. Recession is Underway - 3rd Nov 24
Stock Market Trend Forecast to Jan 2025 - 2nd Nov 24
President Donald PUMP Forecast to Win US Presidential Election 2024 - 1st Nov 24
At These Levels, Buying Silver Is Like Getting It At $5 In 2003 - 28th Oct 24
Nvidia Numero Uno Selling Shovels in the AI Gold Rush - 28th Oct 24
The Future of Online Casinos - 28th Oct 24
Panic in the Air As Stock Market Correction Delivers Deep Opps in AI Tech Stocks - 27th Oct 24
Stocks, Bitcoin, Crypto's Counting Down to President Donald Pump! - 27th Oct 24
UK Budget 2024 - What to do Before 30th Oct - Pensions and ISA's - 27th Oct 24
7 Days of Crypto Opportunities Starts NOW - 27th Oct 24
The Power Law in Venture Capital: How Visionary Investors Like Yuri Milner Have Shaped the Future - 27th Oct 24
This Points To Significantly Higher Silver Prices - 27th Oct 24
US House Prices Trend Forecast 2024 to 2026 - 11th Oct 24
US Housing Market Analysis - Immigration Drives House Prices Higher - 30th Sep 24
Stock Market October Correction - 30th Sep 24
The Folly of Tariffs and Trade Wars - 30th Sep 24
Gold: 5 principles to help you stay ahead of price turns - 30th Sep 24
The Everything Rally will Spark multi year Bull Market - 30th Sep 24
US FIXED MORTGAGES LIMITING SUPPLY - 23rd Sep 24
US Housing Market Free Equity - 23rd Sep 24
US Rate Cut FOMO In Stock Market Correction Window - 22nd Sep 24
US State Demographics - 22nd Sep 24
Gold and Silver Shine as the Fed Cuts Rates: What’s Next? - 22nd Sep 24
Stock Market Sentiment Speaks:Nothing Can Topple This Market - 22nd Sep 24
US Population Growth Rate - 17th Sep 24
Are Stocks Overheating? - 17th Sep 24
Sentiment Speaks: Silver Is At A Major Turning Point - 17th Sep 24
If The Stock Market Turn Quickly, How Bad Can Things Get? - 17th Sep 24
IMMIGRATION DRIVES HOUSE PRICES HIGHER - 12th Sep 24
Global Debt Bubble - 12th Sep 24
Gold’s Outlook CPI Data - 12th Sep 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

America's Stasi Collecting Your Phone Records

Politics / US Politics Jun 07, 2013 - 10:22 AM GMT

By: Michael_S_Rozeff

Politics

Verizon is being forced by the government to disclose telephone records of all of its customers. Those of us who want our call records to be private are being forced to reveal them to the government. We can't keep them private even if we want to. What is wrong with the government spying on us in this way?


Murray Rothbard has made a clear and correct libertarian case against any compulsory speech. As I understand this, our thoughts are our own. They are private. Our imaginings are our own. Our fantasies are our own. We can imagine the most heinous crimes and plan them out in our minds if we wish. We can have any sexual fantasies we wish to have. We can indulge in as many hateful, malevolent and spiteful thoughts as we wish. We can have private saintly wishes, fond hopes, mistaken views, ill-formed ideas, flashes of genius, communications with God or with the devil, atheistic thoughts, artistic ideas, or superstitions. I hardly scratch the range of what we can think. It is that vast. If it is illegitimate, in the libertarian world explained by Rothbard, to use force against a non-aggressor, then no one has a right to make us talk or to make us reveal our thoughts because our thoughts are not aggressions. That’s one argument.

Here’s a second argument. If force is allowable to be used on people's thoughts, two kinds of results will rise in frequency. First, people will be forced to reveal thoughts that they don't want revealed because they consider them damaging to themselves or others. People simply could not get along with one another if what people thought of each other or knew about each other were revealed or could be revealed or were made to be revealed. Society would break down. Second, people will be forced not to reveal thoughts that they want to be revealed, such as new ideas that go against conventional wisdom. Think of the suppression and persecution of Galileo. Both kinds of results cause costs to the person and society. The right to think and speak and the concomitant right to think and not speak limit these two costs.

Free speech extends to related activities. If you have a right to speak or not to speak, then you have a right to commit your thoughts to paper and keep the paper private. You have a right to communicate your thoughts to others and keep that contact private. Speech extends to joint communications with others and to the making of joint plans. It extends to using various means of communication, such as paper and electronic devices. These actions are natural extensions of free speech and the same libertarian-law reasoning applies.

You can privately conspire by yourself or with others (plan) to build the most marvelous energy-saving device, or you can privately conspire (plan) to dope a horse in a horse race. The latter cannot be a crime because you haven't actually doped the horse. Furthermore, you can change your mind and not dope that horse. Neither one of these private plans, for good or ill, invades the rights of others. Both are exercises of one's rights. Yes, it is no crime to plan a crime, by this reasoning. To say otherwise opens up the Pandora's Box of controlling all speech (and associated behavior) in the name of preventing crime and of finding people guilty of thought crimes, as opposed to actual crimes. This is rank totalitarianism. The government engages in this via conspiracy laws.

Verizon is an intermediary. The government is essentially making you and me send them a record of our calls. I've made three arguments against this, all of them viewing this as going against free speech and as an invasion of privacy.

First, under libertarian law reasoning, making you reveal your records when you have committed no crime is an aggression and illegitimate. Second, if such aggression is permitted, it results in two serious costs, which are associated with revealing speech that people want kept private and suppressing speech that people want made widely known. Third, such aggression is part and parcel of a totalitarian mindset that, by extension, attempts to control speech as a preventive measure and find people guilty of thought crimes that have aggressed against nobody.

What the government is doing to Verizon's customers is wrong for these reasons.

The government argues that it's going to use the data to catch terrorists or potential terrorists who intend to violate rights of innocent people. The government is for sure invading our free speech rights against the slim possibility that terrorists will invade our lives. Which of these is a greater threat to us? Our own government's totalitarian moves in the past 10 years or potential terrorists who are being encouraged by our own government's activities overseas?

Can any rights ever be secured by a government that believes it is proper for it to invade some or many rights in order to secure others? Isn’t this yet another Pandora’s Box? Isn’t a government with this kind of power wide open to invading any rights it pleases?

Michael S. Rozeff [send him mail] is a retired Professor of Finance living in East Amherst, New York. He is the author of the free e-book Essays on American Empire.

    © 2012 Copyright Michael S. Rozeff - All Rights Reserved
    Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.


© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in