"You can’t have your privacy violated if you don’t know your privacy is violated."

[BobStackFan4Life]

"You can’t have your privacy violated if you don’t know your privacy is violated."

That's what GOP committee chair Mike Rogers argued at the Tuesday NSA hearing.

Rogers: I would argue the fact that we haven’t had any complaints come forward with any specificity arguing that their privacy has been violated, clearly indicates, in 10 years, clearly indicates that something must be doing right. Somebody must be doing something exactly right.

Vladeck: But who would be complaining?

Rogers: Somebody who’s privacy was violated. You can’t have your privacy violated if you don’t know your privacy is violated.

Vladeck: I disagree with that. If a tree falls in the forest, it makes a noise whether you’re there to see it or not.

Rogers (astounded): Well that’s a new interesting standard in the law. We’re going to have this conversation… but we’re going to have wine, because that’s going to get a lot more interesting…

The Fourth Amendment protects the right of “the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” There’s no secrecy clause that states the people’s rights are void if the government can violate them without getting caught.

These are some seriously scary people.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/top-house-republican-says

 

[Deacon923]

Good God. It is truly frightening that statement came out of the mouth of an elected representative who swore to uphold the Constitution.

 

[94Deac]

He's obviously someone who has never had his dorm, apartment, or house robbed. He's begging for his social media pages and personal computers to be hacked. He'd shit bricks if his dickpics were released online. It would be okay until he found out about it, as his "logic" goes.

 

[Wakeforest22890]

"You can’t have your privacy violated if you don’t know your privacy is violated."

Well that statement is pretty at odds with the current objective/subjective standard of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Reasonable people almost certainly believe that they have privacy within their own homes and on private calls, and most people subjectively believe that they have this privacy too. Whether or not people know that their privacy is being violated or not seems to have nothing to do with the Fourth Amendment at all. If you would keep your most precious things at home and believe that this is private, while society at large also would generally deem this as a private place then it is typically granted Fourth Amendment protection I would think, regardless of subjective knowledge of an infringement. Where is Rogers finding any support from the law in his statement?

 

[Deacon923]

Mike Rogers is the kind of guy who carries a pocket constitution, but only gets it out to make the point that it doesn't say anything about protecting the environment or feeding poor people. He wouldn't bother to read it to find out what it actually DOES say.

 

[ImTheCaptain]

#lolrepublicans

 

[ArlingtonDeac]

He's obviously someone who has never had his dorm, apartment, or house robbed. He's begging for his social media pages and personal computers to be hacked. He'd shit bricks if his dickpics were released online. It would be okay until he found out about it, as his "logic" goes.

"And if my friends and I watched a video of you and your wife showering together at home, but kept it to ourselves, would that violate your privacy, Senator?"

 

[94Deac]

"And if my friends and I watched a video of you and your wife showering together at home, but kept it to ourselves, would that violate your privacy, Senator?"

"Uh, well, in that case, uh... it's an issue we would have to address... uh... that's not quite what I had in mind... uhhh... see what I meant... uhhhh... 9/11 was a tragedy we must confront and prevent."

 

[PhDeac]

"And if my friends and I watched a video of you and your wife showering together at home, but kept it to ourselves, would that violate your privacy, Senator?"

"That's different because I don't know you and your friends. I can't trust you. But I can trust the government. Oh wait. That's not what I meant to say. Let me try again..."