Need Help - Trying to Convince a Co-Worker that Phone Taps R Wrong

[stop the bleeding]

How can a make a co-worker see that it is wrong for the government to monitor our phones and computers without proper oversight.

She isn't a freeper in fact she is the 30% of people who usually sit on the fence and she feels that it is alright as long as people are not doing anything wrong. My head exploded when she said this.

I told her why we have FISA, and the 4th Amendment, I also stated in several different ways that eroding civil liberties is no way to guarantee our protection. I brought up what I thougt were several good points, but I was unsuccessful at getting her to see the light.


Could people give me some concise HARD reasoning as to why/ and to make her SEE why this is bad for us/civil liberties.

I am banging my head into the wall here trying to make her see the light, there is a good chance that some of the easy suggestions that you all will make have already been argued by me. So I am looking for a "slam dunk"

Thank you in advance:)

[smokey nj]

1. I would ask her to define the word "terrorist"...........

and then remind her of the your either with us or against us bullshit. And then point out that according to that logic, YOU could be considered a "terrorist".

[donco6]

2. Allowing warrantless wire taps is like . . .

standing on a street corner waiting for the bus and having a policeman come up and say, "I need to search you." He proceeds to paw your body and rifle through your personal effects. He finds nothing. He leaves.

This repeats each day, day after day. It can happen anywhere - church, the grocery store, at work in front of collegues. They never find anything, but it doesn't matter, because the president says it's ok, and people believe that if you haven't done anything wrong, why are you complaining?

Still think it's OK?

[stop the bleeding]

7. She thinks it is OK as long as the police are doing for our

own protection, and then I asked her what is stop them from manipulating that so that they can search all of the time whenever wherever even for "personal reasons" and this still didn't phase her. It is like I am talking to a wall, I almost want her to get arrested thrown in jail without a right to a lawyer or not even be charged and then see how she likes her reasoning then- after all why would she be arrested if she wasn't doing anything wrong??? I tried to tell her that they DON'T need a reason and that you could be doing everything right/what a GOOD person does. I still couldn't get through to her.

I feel like I am taking crazy pills here

[donco6]

8. As Obi Wan Kenobi says, "You ARE lost then!"

When people see black as white and night as day, it's time to hang it up.

And you're not the one taking the crazy pills.

[VolcanoJen]

9. Bring up the "Six Degrees" argument.

Let's say she's yapping on the phone with her daughter, who calls a friend, who is dating a man from Jordan, who calls his father in Jordan, whose brother is suspected of having ties to Al-Qaeda.

This is the kind of crap that went on constantly with the Stasi in East Germany, for example.

She shouldn't feel safe or protected for one moment.

[SmokingJacket]

3. If she was a freeper, it would be easy:

President Hillary. That gets them every time.

I would ask her why she trusts the government not to misuse the information. If it's okay to spy on her, is it okay to spy on John Kerry's housekeeper? If there's no oversight, what's to stop the government from selling the information they glean to corporations? Or to blackmailers?

If your teenage son is trying to get his friend off drugs, say, should the govt be able to use that phone call to track down the friend and throw him in jail?

Allowing *anyone* to handle your private information is investing them with trust that they won't misuse it. Surely she doesn't think this administration -- or any future administration -- has proven itself to be 100% trustworthy?

[WalrusSlayer]

4. In short: it's not about her

It's about maintaining an environment that is conducive to positive change and allows society and government to self-correct. Two easy examples of how warrantless spying runs counter to that:

• Whistleblower is either publicly discredited or is privately coerced based on information gleaned from unwarranted spying.
  
• Incumbents gain undue leverage by spying on political challengers.

I'm sure there's more, but I don't have time to add them. Folks need to think outside the box of this "if you're not doing anything wrong" framing---it's not necessarily about "you" and and it often has nothing to do with "right vs wrong".

[Bunny]

5. I bookmarked this some time ago. It's interesting:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=2621362

Post #13 in particular.

[libnnc]

6. Saw an interesting interview on HBO last night---

It was a story on Martina Navratalova.

Towards the end of the interview she said her latest concern (in addition to GLBT issues) was the wiretapping scandal. She said (paraphrasing) "I've been in that situation--talking on the phone with my parents (in Communist Czechoslovakia) and hearing the 'click' on the line. It made me so angry then--I'd say things like 'screw this communist bullshit!' I didn't care what they thought."

She said that basically its crazy for people here not to be outraged. She lived through that crap and now that it's going on here she's really pissed.

I'd tell your co-worker that this isn't the Soviet Union. That our freedoms from oppressive government and spying eyes and ears were what always set us apart from them.

Spying on citizens is NOT okay. Ever.

[roguevalley]

10. tell her you hope she never calls anyone that her mother would

disapprove of. porn calls? calling to check out the time her local KKK meets? That sort of thing.

[gratuitous]

11. Say you order a pizza from time to time

And some terrorist cell uses the same pizza joint. Would your friend be willing to come downtown to answer a few questions -- for her own safety, of course. Or would she mind being followed and watched for a few weeks or a few months? And what if she had the misfortune to use the same dry cleaner or florist as those "known" terrorists? Would that indicate a "pattern" of contact? Surely she wouldn't mind being incarcerated for a few weeks or months or years until she could "prove" that despite this nexus of suspicious calling activity she's not a terrorist, right?

Because it's truly for her own safety, and there's no way these intelligence boys ever make a mistake. So if she's locked up for a while, as long as the rest of us are safe, that's a sacrifice she should be willing to make, right? Now, she'll probably lose her job and become unemployable, but that's got to be preferable to being blown up without warning by a bunch of terrorists, right? She should be proud and honored to starve in the street so that we're safe, safe, safe -- otherwise she's probably a terrorist.

[never_get_over_it]

12. Ask her to consider why they won't bother getting the warrants

so many reason I'm opposed to warrantless wire taps - one - and most important - it SHITS right on my beloved Constitution - two don't trust these ass holes - and three what must they be doing if they can't bother to get a warrant. My understanding is that is is incredibly easy to get one of these FISA warrants UNLESS what they are doing is so ridiculous that they don't stand a chance of getting one.

So ask her three things:

if they wire tapped the Kerry campaign - would that be ok - after all he wasn't doing anything wrong - and man I'm sure those campaign strategy conversation came in real handy to the Freak in chief's campaign

what are they hiding from us and the courts that they won't go get a warrant when it is so easy - and if they're protecting us against the terrorist who protects us from THEM.

is it ok for them to bust into our homes without a warrant - you know if I haven't done anything wrong why should I mind if some government thug searches my underware drawer!?

and then give her a copy of the Constitution and tell her to go freaking read it

[Cerridwen]

13. Is she sure she has nothing to hide?

Nothing that could be twisted to make it appear she has something to hide?

How does she know she has nothing to hide because we don't know what they're listening for?

Has she ever used the words bomb, Bin Laden, Al Quaida, terrorism, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia while talking with a friend?
What other words can she think of that they might be listening for?
Is she sure that didn't trigger an alert?
How can she be sure since we don't know what they're listening for?

Just my particular m.o. when dealing with un-believers.

[MadHound]

14. Cool, that can we bug her car?

Or how about we bug her house? Her bedroom? What about cameras, in the car, bedroom and bathroom? All for national security purposes, of course. Tell her what, let's just slip a GPS chip under her skin so that all her movements can be tracked too.

That's where this shit is leading.

[kittenpants]

15. start going through her desk and her purse the next time she gets up

from her desk. When she comes back and sees you hunched over her stuff with her personal belongings spread out, say "I knew you wouldn't mind because you haven't 'done anything wrong.'"

[Cronus Protagonist]

16. She must trust the government - wake her up to their criminal past

Show her what COINTELPRO did/does today under a new name.



Educate A Freeper - Flaunt Your Opinions!
http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13

[Beelzebud]

17. Bring a copy of the Bill of Rights to work nad have her read it.

If that doesn't work, bring the Declaration of Independance and a copy of the entire Constitution and have her read those.

[aden_nak]

18. Here are a few points to consider:

1) Wiretapping under the oversight of the FISA court (a court so secretive that its members aren't even known to the public) is only different from Bush's wiretapping program in one way. The oversight. Bush could order just as many wiretaps on terrorists within the law as he could outside of the law. And the warrants are retroactive, so if he needed a wiretap IMMEDIATELY he could get one. Why, then, won't he work with the courts to help protect Americans?

2) I don't know this person, but you obviously do. So pick an issue where she agrees that the establishment was wrong. It could be anything from Watergate to Child Labor Laws in the early 20th century. Just anything where the power that be were in the wrong, and it was the result of journalism and public outcry that things changed for the better. Ask her to imagine what would have happened if the government had been able to silence or slander the people who revealed the truth? If they'd been able to wiretap their phones just because they were reporters? If they'd been able to silence their sources before the story was even recorded. That's the sort of abuse that takes place when there is no oversight on government power.

[Karmageddon]

19. Bring up something personal or intimate with her so other people can hear.

When she starts to squirm, remind her that she said she doesn't mind people listening in because she's not doing anything wrong. Then keep going with the intimate conversation. Doesn't have to be anything really bad. You don't have to ask her about her herpes or anything, just something that might make her uncomfortable being discussed in front of strangers.

[vademocrat]

20. I wrote an english paper on this last month - here's a paragraph

that made sense to several people in class who were clueless about the issue. I also used the 4th amendment & FISA.

"Several media pundits have defended the illegal electronic eavesdropping by saying “if you have nothing to hide, there’s nothing to fear.” This is an attempt to sidestep the fact that the President is willfully violating the Constitution. It is also not true. The time to protect our rights is before we lose them and the time to think about our rights is before we need them. It is not as simple as “if you have nothing to hide” because if the government can spy on its citizens with no oversight or legal restraint, there is no way of controlling what government agents or employees do with this power. Perhaps they want to spy on political opponents or someone with connections wants a rival’s internal business information. It is so easy to eavesdrop today that to allow the government unchecked access to “listen in” to anyone at anytime not only invites, but encourages, abuse and corruption by government officials."

If she isn't concerned that the president of the united states has violated his oath of office, let it go & tell her to go shopping...:shrug:

Here's how the paper opened:

"When George Bush became President, he swore to “…preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” He has violated his oath of office by authorizing the illegal wiretapping of American citizens by the National Security Agency (NSA). This is a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution..."