Observations by a Citizen: Who’s Watching Me Now?

By: Hal Rounds

When our Constitution was offered to the states as their new plan for united governing, there was a lot of opposition. When the first states had agreed to it, others stopped, demanding a list of rights should be added. Many opposed such a list, arguing there was no listed power that would infringe the rights everyone held dear. But more were uncomfortable, knowing that people in power would from time to time exceed their defined powers unless there was some kind of restriction on them. So, they added our “Bill of Rights.”

The 4th Amendment in that Bill was designed to be a shield against the government gathering information that could be used in unfair prosecutions: Such prosecutions have always been the tool of tyrants.  The 4th Amendment shields the “persons, houses, papers and effects” of every one of us against being seized, or even looked at with a law-related purpose (“searched”), by any part of our government.  The main exception is that an agent can get a warrant to search if he can prove to a judge that there is “probable cause” that the information sought is related to some illegal act.

In those days, papers held all a person’s recorded activities, and there was no technology to automatically record a person going about his daily business. Technology has changed, and nearly everything we do each day is digitally recorded somewhere. And someone else controls it, whether in banks, businesses, government or home “security” cameras, computers, and the “cloud,” etc.

How should our courts preserve the “original intent?” What could go wrong? I hear some say “I’m not worried, I haven’t done anything wrong.”  Does that really make you safe?

Let’s say you checked into a hotel in Washington around January 5 of 2021, and left on January 7? So what? Well, The FBI and others really want to get everyone who had anything to do with the January 6 demonstrations.  Your bank has your credit card information, showing your arrival, departure, meals, your flight records, and everything else.  And they are all too anxious to let the FBI look at that modern equivalent to your “papers and effects,” even without a formal warrant.

Getting your credit card address, they look up your driver’s license, and get your facial image. Later, you visit Wal Mart. Maybe Wal Mart lets the FBI scan checkout register photos -the ones you face as you scan each item. Facial recognition shows you bought a gun cleaning kit – for cash – at a self-checkout register. Is that as a “suspicious purchase?” And then traffic camera and cell phone data show you visited a friend. He was a Tea Party member back in the day, when Lois Lerner of the IRS was blocking Tea Party accounts. Another store’s camera shows you there around the time some shoplifting losses were recorded. Might the agent claim that you should be investigated as a dangerous conspirator?

Ahh, you say, that’s just a bunch of conspiracy hysteria.  

Really? Judicial Watch, a public interest organization, uncovered a Justice Department (DOJ) draft of plans for prosecuting the January 6 demonstrators. (They had to sue when the DOJ first refused to open the files.)  It seeks cell phone records and location data, social media, email, cloud storage, financial records (credit card and bank), flight travel, and other records. The DOJ also asked for an “information collection tool accessible for input by federal attorneys and FBIs across the country to share gathered intelligence from individual cases/investigations.”  The plan also mentions “Complicating Issues.”  It points out “Unprecedented volume” of records to be studied, and, most interesting, “Discovery Obligations.”  All the information gathered will be accessible to the attorneys for people prosecuted in the “discovery” phase of the prosecutions.  There’s a lot of material that the DOJ might want to hide …

Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton notes: “These documents detail a troubling and unprecedented deployment of federal resources to prosecute Americans … They seem to describe a massive political and spy operation masquerading as a law enforcement operation.”

Power is built on information – data. And the 4th Amendment was purposely put there to prevent our government from “fishing” for information without a real case. “Data” changes the playing field, and we can’t be sure the courts have figured out how to protect our original intent. And, in 2022, the IRS announced plans to hire 87,000 new employees.

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