So, we should speak up when the government decides it knows best about our personal information and freedom. We cannot sit idly by while they decide to store the phone numbers and names of people we call, touch the private parts of 13-year olds in the name of airport security (using a system that is more about “security theater” than safety), track every piece of mail we send, or know where we drive (note that the USAToday article specifically mentions places of worship).

Almost immediately following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Safety Administration were created. After stumbling through an impromptu round of “God Bless America” on the capitol steps, both sides of the aisle were quick to put aside their regular differences in order to put forward their most secure faces.

Neither party wanted to be seen as soft on terrorism.

Almost twelve years later, we must face the snowball effect of those initial efforts and have a real discussion about where the priority of “security at all costs” ends and the honoring of civil liberties begin. For Christians, this is an important conversation because it involves biblical issues such as the dignity of all persons, a healthy view of human depravity, and our belief in Christian ethics.

Many Early American Christians Had a More Healthy Suspicion Regarding Government and Liberty

It is important to note that we have, for example, a First Amendment in the Bill of Rights because free-church Christians (Baptists, to be specific) said that the government should not be trusted to guard the rights of the individual– those rights had to be enumerated, so that freedom and liberty could be protected.

Actually (and ironically), some of the Founding Fathers were concerned that by listing the “rights” in these “bills,” some might assume that these were the only rights, when there were many more. Regardless, they added these rights, which were generally a non-issue for many years– until they were tested many years later and the Bill or Rights became more prominent.

The Founding Fathers chose to enumerate such rights and protections because they knew that governments, left unrestricted, would abuse power– so they assumed such abuses of power not because they were paranoid, but because they were wise. Good people said this would never happen– but they rejected assurances from good people because they knew people weren’t inherently good– and power must always have limits.

Our Founding Fathers saw the Bill of Rights as providing barriers against government overreach and abuse.

People (particularly people in governments with power) could not be trusted to have no checks on their power. Why? Well, some of it had to do with history. For example, a bill of rights was an English concept preceeding the American experiment. But, some of those colonists held the view because of biblical convictions about fallen nature and the need to protect rights that some might want to take away.

Yet, Christians today do not sound much like the Christians then.

While Big Brother‘s eyes grow stronger, some Christians just shut their eyes tighter. Perhaps if we better understood current events, we might consider their skeptical approach to the government power.

What You May Have Missed

With yesterday’s new revelations about NSA monitoring and collecting the communication metadata of U.S. citizens (and even more than originally thought), the subject of government overreach is once again in the headlines.

While Edward Snowden, the former Booz Allen Hamilton employee who leaked the information to the press, is no hero, some of the now public information has shocked, and perhaps wakened, many Americans.

That our government has, for years, examined emails, phone records and text messages is of concern. According to former senior NSA crypto-mathematician William J. Binney this Bluffton, UT data center will have the capacity to harvest the complete contents of private emails, cell phones calls, Internet searches and other personal data. Supporters of the NSA claim only metadata of non-US citizens is subject to surveillance, but somereports claim US citizens have been objects of the NSA’s spy tactics.

As if our digital communication is insufficient, the New York Times recently reported our snail mail isn’t necessarily safe either. This collection of our personal correspondence is of double concern since the 4th Amendment was written to protect us from unreasonable search and seizure.

Just this morning, USAToday released a story with the ominous headline, “You can’t hide from cops with license-plate scanners,” explaining that ever licence plate is now being scanned as police drive by. And, that data is stored indefinately– to be looked over as needed. As the ACLU statement said in the story, “This is a way to track all Americans all the time, regardless of whether they’re accused of any wrongdoing.”

Indeed.

Read More