Why does this exist?

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"The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind--surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it was false" - 1984

That would be because of the 4th Amendment:

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I shall continue to be an impossible person as long as those who are now possible remain possible.
Hypercrites

I understand that it does exist. What i'm asking is why it exists.

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"The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind--surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it was false" - 1984

"Those have nothing to hide hide nothing."

While that may be somewhat true, people still like their privacy. I'm a huge privacy advocate. Maybe it's because I think along the lines of "if it doesn't harm you, then stay outta people's business."

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Proudly a "South Park Republican"

Because the Constitution declared it to be so, and the Supreme Court affirmed this interpretation of that Amendment.

By declaration.

By interpretation.

Gee, what else is there????

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I shall continue to be an impossible person as long as those who are now possible remain possible.
Hypercrites

hmm... i've heard that in places other than texas the word, "Why" means something else.

ok.... let me rephrase...

what purpose does the right to privacy serve? that is what i am asking.

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"The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind--surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it was false" - 1984

sometimes it does harm you though, for example, terrorists.

...

our legal system today is getting bizarre.... on the presidents order we can detain U.S. without charges indefinately without letting them contact the outside world, but we can't search someone's house unless a judge orders it, and if we find something we weren't looking for, we can't use it.

eitherway, i strongly oppose this "enemy combatant" stuff, but i'm wondering if in light of our new terrorism problems, the right to privacy should be loosened a bit.

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"The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind--surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it was false" - 1984

Clara, you seem pretty educated about this kind of stuff:

If the right to privacy went away, could you give me an explanation of how this could be exploited by the government?

Its an interesting topic for discussion.

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"The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind--surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it was false" - 1984

Because it's in the Constitution worded the way it is, it won't ever go away, really, but the government has already eroded privacy in its attempts to re-define what "reasonable" is, what "probable cause" is, and added the element of whether or not a person is a public figure, and the element of whether or not you're in a public place where one shouldn't "reasonably" expect to be in private. Like that. The Patriot Act really has thrown definitions for a loop. Republicans love to guffaw over that line about "what the definition of 'is' is," but they're just as guilty (if not moreso) of committing judicial activism by doing exactly such splitting of semantic hairs.

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I shall continue to be an impossible person as long as those who are now possible remain possible.
Hypercrites

It exists in order to protect our Individuality as human beings. What I do with my time, when I am alone, and what goes on in my head is what makes me who I am. The fact that no one has the right to see and what what those things are gurantees that my individuality will continue to exist. If privacy is taken away, then our identities are taken as well. Then we become nothing more than droids that do as we are told.

-Demosthenes

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"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower