Is it democracy when there's only one option on the ballot?
When people say there's no NSA problem because there are warrants issued for their activities the argument gets into some challenging territory.
Saddam Hussein's Iraq had higher voter participation that America does, but only Saddam Hussein was on the ballot.
Is that democracy?
If you were allowed to post anything you want on the internet, but owning a computer or smart phone was a felony, would that be free speech? If a government decided that Islam isn't a religion (in the way Germany decided Scientology is not a religion) would outlawing Islam be denying freedom of religion? If so, why? The government said it isn't a religion, so how could religious freedom be involved?
If all eligible citizens are allowed to vote, but 80% of citizens are deemed ineligible by the other 20%, is that democracy? Yes, it is, insofar as it meets a formal definition, but few of us would call it democracy today.
And if all human communications are deemed "relevant" to a specific investigation, is a warrant covering all human communications really a warrant?
In one sense, yes, insofar as two branches of government have agreed that a warrant for everything can be a proper warrant.
In another sense, no, since the very concept of a warrant precludes universality.
But at least there is judicial oversight of the executive... though it is hard to say at what point a rubber-stamp would cease to be oversight.
And so on.
The artful redefinition of terms could make anything proper. But we know that at some point it would no longer really be proper, except in some hyper-technical sense.
