Ohhhh, dear lord…are we really that complacent? From Slashdot:
According to a Washington Post poll, a majority (63%) of Americans ‘said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate terrorism.’ A slightly higher majority would not be bothered if the NSA collected personal calls that they made. Even though the program has received bi-partisan criticism from Congress, it appears that the public values security over privacy.
Wow…
I think some good quotes are worth repeating here:
“The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes.”
— Thomas Paine
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
— Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania (1759)
“It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.”
— John Philpot Curran: Speech upon the Right of Election, 1790. (Speeches. Dublin, 1808.)
“The masses almost always value security over freedom until they have so little of either a revolution is born.”
– Unknown
