Last month, in Hortonville, Wisconsin two high school girls were suspended because they had created a list of 60 students' names.
There was, according to police who investigated the matter, no plan to harm anyone, no threats, no specifics outlining places, times or methods. It was just a list. Further, upon questioning, the girls admitted that making the list had been a joke.
But school officials and police took the matter very seriously. As they probably should have.
And now I think about the fact that this - even as I type it - is being recorded in the NSA data center closer than 10 miles from my home.
They're just making a list. There's no specific plan to hurt anyone. It's just a piece of paper - or in this case, a bunch of 1s and 0s. And that list will sit there at the data center until someone decides to use it.
Lists make us nervous. And they should. Firearms registries have been used to create criminals over night in both Europe and in Connecticut. Entire ethnic groups have disappeared in Asia and in Africa because of lists. And I have personal friends whose names were on a list of California residents who donated money to support the state's Proposition 8, and who were very truly terrorized when that list was made public to vicious individuals.
Lists are one of the most basic ways that governments have of violating the Natural right that every person has to privacy in his person, papers and effects. Who believes this? Who attends those meetings? Who sits in which church? Who gave money to what political cause? Who voted which way?
No, I have nothing to hide. But that does not mean that I welcome people into my personal life just to satisfy their voyeuristic fetish, or to prove that I'm not hiding anything.
None of us, liberal or conservative, should support the making of lists for the sake of list-making. It seems to me that this is an issue on which we can all agree.
There was, according to police who investigated the matter, no plan to harm anyone, no threats, no specifics outlining places, times or methods. It was just a list. Further, upon questioning, the girls admitted that making the list had been a joke.
But school officials and police took the matter very seriously. As they probably should have.
And now I think about the fact that this - even as I type it - is being recorded in the NSA data center closer than 10 miles from my home.
They're just making a list. There's no specific plan to hurt anyone. It's just a piece of paper - or in this case, a bunch of 1s and 0s. And that list will sit there at the data center until someone decides to use it.
Lists make us nervous. And they should. Firearms registries have been used to create criminals over night in both Europe and in Connecticut. Entire ethnic groups have disappeared in Asia and in Africa because of lists. And I have personal friends whose names were on a list of California residents who donated money to support the state's Proposition 8, and who were very truly terrorized when that list was made public to vicious individuals.
Lists are one of the most basic ways that governments have of violating the Natural right that every person has to privacy in his person, papers and effects. Who believes this? Who attends those meetings? Who sits in which church? Who gave money to what political cause? Who voted which way?
No, I have nothing to hide. But that does not mean that I welcome people into my personal life just to satisfy their voyeuristic fetish, or to prove that I'm not hiding anything.
None of us, liberal or conservative, should support the making of lists for the sake of list-making. It seems to me that this is an issue on which we can all agree.
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