Here’s the basic idea: The federal government can know everything it wants to about you and your family. On the other hand, you shouldn’t know that the guy living on the other side of your apartment wall once had a little problem–something about having sex with children–but he’s better now.
These two issues have been or are being dealt with in Congress and in the U.S. Supreme Court. And on their own, maybe they make sense, but when you put them side by side, they smell.
Item No. 1: Between the Senate’s passage Tuesday of the Homeland Security Act and Monday’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review ruling to support expanded domestic spying, there isn’t much about our private lives that can be hidden. Tapping phones, reading e-mails? No problem. But the government promises not to abuse this power.
In short, whatever the government cares to know about us, it probably will be able to find out, even if it may have no business doing so. “Mr. Smith, care to explain why you ordered extra cheese on that pizza last Friday when you know your doctor has warned you about overdoing dairy?”
Item No. 2: The Supreme Court has been debating how far states can go to help the public keep track of paroled sex offenders living or working nearby.
On one hand, the justices seem to grasp the idea that people would like to know if a sex ogre–check that, former sex ogre–lives next door, but they also understand that former ogres have rights. This all refers to the Internet sex-offender registries that several states, including Illinois, permit to notify neighbors that, oh, maybe they should watch Junior when he goes out to play.
But attorneys for some of the sex offenders complained to the court that because of the notifications, their clients have had trouble carrying on with life after serving their prison time. For example, they are having trouble finding work and places to live.
The offenders did their time, the lawyers argued, so leave them alone.
Now, just a minute.
If what used to be our right to privacy is lying trampled on the floor of the Capitol, why is the court bothering to debate whether people who really did something wrong should be given a special place on the Internet?
Here’s a little guidance for the court. How about we leave the offenders’ names and photos on the Internet for just as long as it takes the victims to get over what happened to them? Then when that time comes, everybody can go have a nice day.
Certainly the concept of fairness to the guilty makes sense to the lawyers, but to some of us, the idea that the offender should be able to “move on” is so offensive as to be absurd, considering that the victim may never be able to “move on.”
What could be wrong with ridicule and scorn for someone who deserves every bit of it? It was the offender who brought the shame on himself or herself. What’s wrong with letting wrongdoing carry the stain of shame?
If you like to prey on others and you don’t want us to know about it, move to the Canadian Rockies and try your luck with the grizzlies. Or here’s an idea: Don’t do it! Don’t prey on people! That’s how you keep your name off the registry, Einstein.
In fact, if the government can go as far as it wants with domestic spying for what it considers legitimate reasons, let’s expand this Internet idea to include neighborhood spying.
Let’s list every kind of wrongdoer on the Internet. Maybe it would be nice to know that the drinker next door once ran head-on into a family of four, killing all of them.
Or maybe it would be nice to know that those brats down the street have spent three stints in Juvie Hall because they can’t keep their hands off other people’s cars.
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In other words, why is it potentially OK to open up the lives of people who, if they do spit, certainly don’t do it on the sidewalk, while at the same time continuing to concern ourselves about appropriate privacy for the guilty?
Probably every American now understands that because of terrorism, our lives will never be the same, that the only way to defend ourselves against slimes who see no value in human life is to sacrifice our privacy.
But let’s at least be consistent. If we’re trying to protect ourselves from the slimes we don’t yet know about, why don’t we make use of the information we have about the slimes we do know about?
If we’re going to be patting down the good, the decent and the law-abiding, don’t tell us we have to tiptoe around the rights of people who even one time thought so little of their fellow man that they attacked them or stole from them.
That’s why it’s called having a record.
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Send e-mail for Ross Werland to [email protected].