Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

Benjamin Franklin wrote these words back in 1759 in An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania, but they have become the refrain of Libertarians during the Spring of 2013.  The song began in May with allegations that the Executive Branch used the Internal Revenue Service for political purposes.  Before that story even had time to fully ferment, the United States Supreme Court jumped into the fray with its decision in Maryland v. King, giving conservative Justice Antonin Scalia the unusual opportunity to write a scathing dissent that was joined by three liberal justices declaring that the majority’s logic upholding DNA testing of arrested detainees “taxes the credulity of the credulous.”  The first words of his opinion of June 3, 2013, portended the remainder of the week’s events:

“The Fourth Amendment forbids searching a person for evidence of a crime when there is no basis for believing the person is guilty of the crime or is in possession of incriminating evidence. That prohibition is categorical and without exception; it lies at the very heart of the Fourth Amendment. Whenever this Court has allowed a suspicionless search, it has insisted upon a justifying motive apart from the investigation of crime.”

Two days later, on June 5, 2013, The Guardian reported that the National Security Administration was collecting millions of call records from Verizon Wireless.  By the end of the week, we were being told that the FBI and the NSA were sucking down a lot more than just phone records and, in fact, had direct links with Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and many Internet Service Providers.  Within another week, the scandal had spread across the pond to England where allegations were being leveled against British intelligence for tying into the U.S. system in order to obtain information about British citizens. 

Meanwhile, whistle-blower Edward Snowden is running for his proverbial (if not literal) life somewhere in Hong Kong.

Denial of liberties in the name of security creates unlikely alliances.   President Obama and Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein have been joined by none other than Republican ex-rival Senator John McCain and Texas Republican House Member Michael McCaul.  Quickly ducking for cover, on the other hand, is the author of the USA PATRIOT Act, Jim Sensenbrenner and scores of Democrats (as well as many Republicans) who voted for the USA PATRIOT Act or its extensions, renewals, and/or reauthorizations.  Politics can be very fickle when the winds of change are blowing.

Justice Scalia may not have had Benjamin Franklin’s words in mind when he wrote his dissent, but the meaning of Mr. Franklin's words ring true in Justice Scalia's dissent:  “Today’s judgment will, to be sure, have the beneficial effect of solving more crimes; then again, so would the taking of DNA samples from anyone who flies on an airplane (surely the Transportation Security Administration needs to know the “identity” of the flying public), applies for a driver’s license, or attends a public school. Perhaps the construction of such a genetic panopticon is wise. But I doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection.”

Or to have their communications tracked and saved by the crown.