Above all else because democracy and the Rule of Law matter. Our government is not supposed to have this power. Based on their experiences our founders thought it was a bad idea. We cannot allow a precedent in which government can spy on anyone based on undisclosed, secret laws. Especially when they are also doing the same thing with the terrorist kill list, claiming American citizens and others have broken unknown laws, without proof, and then putting execution orders on them (i.e. Anwar al-Awlaki). Don’t know if he is a terrorist or not, but he deserves to have a right to prove his innocence in court like any other American.

Why does it matter, if you aren’t doing anything wrong? Well, only if you aren’t doing anything wrong in the eyes of the current politicians in power. Is organizing a third party wrong? Is alternative, non-corporate media wrong? Was the civil right movement wrong? To a corporate bribed politician of one of the establishment parties – read 95% of Congress – it might seem wrong. Especially, if you can claim it as wrong in secret, and not face public scrutiny for it.

Again, this is the reason for the Rule of Law, and Limited Government. To avoid these kinds of abuses. And it is not merely speculative either. That’s why other posters brought up COINTELPRO, look it up. The government spied on Martin Luther King, John Lennon, the Black Panthers and others. Nixon spied on his political rivals. If his rivals had not been the other establishment party, think he would have been caught? Under the current spying program authorized by Bush, we know at the very least in Maryland that anti-death penalty and anti-war activists were targeted for spying and put on terrorist watch lists. Again, don’t believe me, look it up.

Some discount spying, because it is only listening, not action. But information is power. It allows governments to get inside information on groups, and use that to try to attack them or discredit them publicly. In the case of the Black Panthers it was used to insert plants in the group and spread misinformation to promote dissent and distrust within the group, fostering its breakdown. Might not be a group u like, but does this seem an appropriate way for a government to deal with a group it doesn’t like, before they had been convicted of wrong doing?

We also must consider the chilling effect on free speech. Knowing any of their communications can be tapped, will people feel free to speak out against their government, to try to organize, peacefully and lawfully to change it? Could government agencies not single out communities, companies, political groups, Internet forum users, etc. for retaliation (dump government contracts, redirect government projects, release embarrassing or compromising info, reveal identities of internet authors using pen names – often used because of worry of negative reactions from employers) based on learning people’s identities through spying? The list of potential abuses go on, as do the examples where known abuses have already happened.

This “why should you be concerned about privacy if your not a terrorist” reasoning is EXTREMELY dangerous. The greatest threat to our democracy is and always has been from our own government, not any foreign country or terrorist group. Sell out our freedom and what exactly are we defending from the terrorists anyways? The American government? The institution of the State? Our armed forces and political leaders do not take an oath to defend the State or the powers of government, but to uphold the Constitution.

And yes, civil liberties might make it harder for law enforcement to do its job at times. That’s part of the trade off of living in a free country. You can’t limit the ability of government to abuse power, without to some degree limiting its ability to use power properly. And in the long run, no matter how successful it may allow the authorities to be in thwarting terrorists, eroding our liberties in the long run will not make us safer from violence, it will expose us to much more. Either through violent repression, violent revolt, or any mix of the two.