Washington Laundering the Surveillance State

Just have a private company spy for you. That's cool right?

The First Amendment says this;

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The Forth Amendment says this;

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Both Amendments, along with other ones to boot are not respected by our government all too often, and to date the courts have not reined the state in. (At least not to the degree one might expect at this point.)*

Consider the issue of free speech first. There is nothing in the Constitution about disallowing “hate speech”. There is nothing about disallowing offensive speech. It also explicitly protects a “free press” which is free in the United States to criticize whatever or whomever it chooses. The state has no business weighing in. But the state has, and it has recently.

Secondly, consider our right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, and even when reasonable that the government must get a warrant from a judge under oath. How does the NSA and other agencies trolling through your data without a warrant not violate the Fourth Amendment? And that’s just for starters.

Of course this is old news. (How sad is that?)

What is newer news is the degree to which the Federal Government is using private companies, which it can of course coerce, to do the dirty work of the surveillance state.