If You Have Nothing to Hide, You Have Nothing to Worry About

If You Have Nothing to Hide, You Have Nothing to Worry About... I Guess
By Thomas Horn
December 6, 2004
Raiders News Service

SOURCE:

In the days leading up to the U.S. Presidential election, in one of several conversations I had with a fellow evangelical who couldn’t understand my lack of enthusiasm for the current administration, I listened as the highly educated and very successful publisher said the dumbest thing I’d heard in a while - a statement that unfortunately is being repeated by many sheeple these days.

"But Tom," he said in response to my concern about the erosion of civil liberties, "If you don’t have anything to hide, you don’t have anything to worry about!"

Maybe it was because he was recently returned from a private dinner with Attorney General John Ashcroft - which included a night of bulletproof limousine rides and exquisite dining locations under the ever-present protection of secret service agents - that my friend seemed asleep at the cerebral wheel. Or perhaps it was due to the three of us – me, my friend, and Ashcoft - having credentials in the same organization, or the fact that one of my co-authors was an old college pal of John’s, or Ashcroft’s winning personality and the afterglow of the piano playing and gospel-songs-crooning they had shared at the Attorney General’s private residence that night that had disarmed my buddy’s brain. After all, I’m sure all of this would make it difficult for any hard-core evangelical to understand my point of view: that the nation’s top cop was a scary man working with a group of even scarier men on some pretty scary policies.

Whatever the case, in the days following the election, I was pleased to learn that Ashcroft was stepping down. Yet my bubble burst when insiders told me the celebration had come a bit early, and that John Ashcroft’s pro-abortion replacement was bringing some equally menacing qualities of his own to the thoroughly neo-conned White House. Multilateralism was being deemed outmoded, they said, and the new assertion would be that freedom from terrorism would only occur through pre-emptive action against ‘enemies of democracy’ not only abroad, but also inside the United States."

I knew what they meant, and that it was bound to come sooner or later. I even predicted it, not that I’m a prophet you understand, and not that anybody was listening way back then.

It was 1990 when as keynote speaker to a packed house of religious delegates (including TBN officials), I howled, "If America doesn’t wake up and teach it’s kids to think, we will have a dictator in this country within ten years!"

I still remember the looks on their faces, as if they were musing, Here he goes with that ‘loss of liberty’ speech again. Does Tom really believe that in just ten years Americans will be microchipped, body searched at airports, and detained without warrants!? Doesn’t he know his ‘evidence - gained - through - torture - will - soon - pierce - the - heart - of - the - Geneva - Convention’ line is getting old!?

Of course they were right. I miscalculated. A dictator didn’t take control of the U.S. within ten years like I’d predicted. It now appears he will need a bit more time.

With leading members of the increasingly political and spiritually anemic evangelical community now spouting phrases like, "If you don’t have anything to hide, you don’t have anything to worry about," it shouldn’t take too long. The eradication of fundamental rights including the presumption of innocence, which my friend either didn’t understand or cherish, will be easy fodder for the emerging beast as he plows the inevitable intrusion by federal bureaucrats into every corner of our lives.

Students of the Revolutionary War and the French Revolution will see the irony here. In 1789, while Americans were at long last rejoicing in newfound religious liberties and hard-won freedoms, more than twenty thousand citizens prepared to be executed in Paris's guillotines beneath the horrific persecution and torture of Maximilien Robespierre. France would witness an unprecedented reign of terror leading up to totalitarianism and Napoleon, in which the masses would in effect be told, "If you don’t have anything to hide, you don’t have anything to worry about!"

In case you’re interested in how today’s pre-emptive action against "enemies of democracy inside the United States" might likewise materialize, here are the signs I talked about fifteen years ago.

Signpost #1 - The erosion of free speech:

Any criticism of the U.S. President and members of the government are currently being viewed as hostile. To speak your mind or disagree in the current political climate can malign you as a terrorist or at a minimum an unpatriotic radical. Like those worried pilgrims who fled in their little boats so long ago to escape totalitarianism in search of America, in the near future dissenters will be viewed as enemies of the state if they challenge the status quo.

Signpost #2 - The erosion of privacy:

As you learn to march in cadence to the New American Dream, changes to federal privacy laws will see you watched, monitored, investigated, patted down, detained, harassed and suspected of criminal activity until you can prove otherwise. To ensure everybody’s uncontested compliance along the new chain-cobbled highway, national ID and exhaustive databases will be networked to track continuous individual whereabouts and activities. Your car, television, computer, sidewalk and building cameras will assure that Big Brother’s benevolent eyes are watching everything you do.

Signpost # 3 - The erosion of property rights:

During the coming years, personal property rights will be vastly undermined. Why? Because of sustainable society ideas, and also because when government accumulates power in responding to a crises, it brings with it the authority to commandeer resources. The roof over your head is yours only as long as the government doesn’t want it, every Real Estate agent knows this. It’s called imminent domain and I watched my grandfather lose his campground as a result of this law. How long will it be before similar principles apply to those hard-earned bucks you have in the bank? Already there is a global push for biometric body-parts-scanning in order to verify your rights to access your own money... so that you can buy and sell. Does this sound prophetic to anybody but me?

Signpost #4 - The erosion of fundamental fairness and U.S. due process standards:

The election ‘mandate’ that was given or assumed could waste little time changing valuable court resources. To "make this country safer and to protect our mutual interests," citizens could expect a gradual decline in constitutional rights including the misuse of laws and regulations by government officials as well as the implementation of new rules for domestic engagement - such as detention without formal charges.

Then again… I heard recently that… "If you don’t have anything to hide, you don’t have anything to worry about!"

I guess.

© 2004 Thomas Horn – All Rights Reserved
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