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Amicus brief in ACLU challenge to gov't data harvesting
Here's an interesting article on its brief, filed by John Frazer of Virginia.
"Our brief in the ACLU matter argued that the government's broad interpretation of its authority to collect information from private entities could effectively override legislative protections for privacy, such as provisions intended to block gun registration. Our lawyer, John Frazer of Virginia, also referred to potential abuse of data mining. Aggregating forms of data to perform inference analysis about individuals and portray their connections and networks could allow the easy identification of our members and other gun owners for unlawful purposes."
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If the judges could actually read, the 4th prohibits the government from any access to ALL private info with a proper warrant obtained with probable cause and specifying the particulars of what is to be searched and seized. There are no "reasonable" searches without a warrant. There is no ambiguity in the 4th for people who are educated in the proper grammar of the English language. The first and second clauses of the 4th are dependent of each other as is shown by the punctuation used. The Framers knew this stuff. People today know pretty much nothing. Ignorance has been spreading through our society at an alarming rate. It appears very few are immune to this disease.
"... the 4th prohibits the government from any access to ALL private info with[out] a proper warrant ..."
The problem is that this doesn't involve information that is private in the legal sense. You voluntarily provide information to businesses and other parties all the time, with no actual expectation of privacy. The problem is that by combining hundreds of these separate bits of information from various sources, once can develop an extremely detailed picture of your life.
The same issues arise when considering public observation of your activities. There's no question that government agents are free to observe you driving down the road or walking down the sidewalk. Simple reality has always limited such observation to persons or activities for which there is some reasonable suspicion. However, the seemingly ubiquitous presence of traffic cameras, license plate scanners and other technologies completely changes the game. It represents something that was never considered when the Constitution was written, and that requires careful thought and undoubtedly regulation.
From the article: Focus on security and privacy explains why the NRA supported the ACLU with a friend of the court brief in their lawsuit over gov't surveillance through telephone metadata.
Well that explains the strange bedfellows :)
Thanks for correcting the typo. But...
Do not for a moment claim anyone provides info to a business with no expectation of privacy. Every interaction of every person with another person or business or entity always has the expectation of complete privacy. This includes banking.
It matters not what was "considered" (use of this word is a simple copout) when the Constitution was written. The ban is absolute and covers any and all new technology.
My expectation of privacy is such that even when in public I expect that no one may capture images of me or pick up my effects without a warrant. It matters not if I am realistic. It matters only that I expect that level of privacy and expect to grant the same level to others.
The ONLY reason the courts do it their way is because they have teeny weeny syndrome and crave more power. If they had honor and were honest, they would state the same as I have and be done with. None of this hiding behind fighting crime or compelling government interest BS they had to pull out the back side of their robes.
People in power are always corrupt and become more so the longer they hold power. This includes everyone from the top to the most menial local person. The courts have either misread or misunderstood just about every aspect of our system and the protections of the individual. Decisions have nearly turned our great system backwards 250 yrs to the time of Kings and divine right. Minimally we have changed our system from one in which the sovereignty of the individual was supreme and Rights came from God to one in which the government allows privileges and steals away God given Rights. This is not what the Framers established.
One more point: The Framers stated that the Bill of Rights was unnecessary because the FEDERAL government DOES NOT HAVE ANY GRANTED POWER TO LEGISLATE IN THE AREAS THAT THE BILL OF RIGHTS ENCOMPASSES. It was also stated at the time that the inclusion of a Bill of Rights might give the appearance of attempting to stop federal legislation and that no BoR should be included. The federal government has no granted police powers except for the 6 or so enumerated in the Constitution. Thus all these laws are in fact unconstitutional on their face because they have no basis in granted powers. And there are no implied or inherent powers in our constitutional system of government.
Sure, no problem w/ datamining when it is used for targeted marketing (reminding me to buy that pair of tennis shoes I had considered last week); big problem w/ datamining when it is used to track the serial numbers of my guns.