Wiretapping Part Two

Ben Franklin once said, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”  Due to the aggressive White House stance regarding the war on terror, in particular, the controversy over warrantless wiretapping on American citizens, it is important to identify the value and use of rights. A right is defined as a political resource or a concept.  Therefore, citizens use rights as a resource to safeguard themselves from intrusion by the government upon essential liberty embodied within the Constitution.  That is, citizens combat this intrusion by using rights in various ways by looking to their representatives for protections or through suits brought through courts of law.  With this in mind it is important to beg the question of how the government should balance rights versus the safety of American citizens, particularly with regard to warrentless wiretapping in a time of war? The very premise of the American society is one based upon rights and these rights set it apart from the terrorists America is at war with.  America’s founders believed that society flourished when individuals’ “unalienable rights’ were made paramount to guard against tyranny.   By eavesdropping on Americans without a warrant, the Bush Administration is violating this essential liberty enumerated in the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.  Their viewpoint that one has nothing to hide if they are not doing wrong violates the founders premise for America and ones individual liberty.  Therefore, by violating these rights the administration is destroying the very thing the government is sworn and trying to protect through the war on terror.