Our Inalienable Rights Can Never Be Recovered

4 Pages Posted: 17 Aug 2013

See all articles by Monroe H. Freedman

Monroe H. Freedman

Hofstra University - Maurice A. Deane School of Law

Date Written: August 16, 2013

Abstract

We live in a Surveillance State in a Surveillance World. The Surveillance State dragnets the lifestyles and beliefs of each of us – political views, associations, books and periodicals, friends, acquaintances, medical concerns, sexual proclivities, marital relations, and religious worship and beliefs. Those dragnets are protected by secrecy, lies, blackmail, financial and political extortion, torture, defamation, prosecutions, imprisonment without due process, and a lack of any effective safeguards. In a congressional hearing, when Senator Ron Wyden asked the National Security Administration director whether the agency was collecting data on Amercans’ phone calls, the NSA chief falsely denied it. After his lie had been exposed, he admitted it, with no apparent embarrassment. When Edward Snowden released the documents that revealed the existence of the problem, President Obama said that he was pleased that a healthy debate had started. He then promptly smeared and hounded Snowden for having started the debate. In addition, the government tried to obtain the death penalty and, in the alternative, 136 years in prison, to punish another whistle-blower, Pfc. Bradley Manning. While waiting 16 weeks for his trial to begin, Manning was stripped of his clothes and held in solitary confinement. The surveillance dragnets are ever-expanding and omnipresent. They can never be removed or restricted, and our Constitution, with its Bill of Rights and separation of powers, has been lost forever.

JEL Classification: K14, K42, O33, H11

Suggested Citation

Freedman, Monroe H., Our Inalienable Rights Can Never Be Recovered (August 16, 2013). Hofstra Univ. Legal Studies Research Paper No. 13-13, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2311251 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2311251

Monroe H. Freedman (Contact Author)

Hofstra University - Maurice A. Deane School of Law ( email )

121 Hofstra University
Hempstead, NY 11549
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
191
Abstract Views
943
Rank
286,541
PlumX Metrics