For the past
few weeks, I have been writing in this column about the government's
use of drones and challenging their constitutionality on Fox News
Channel where I work. I once asked on air what Thomas Jefferson
would have done if – had drones existed at the time – King George
III had sent drones to peer inside the bedroom windows of Monticello.
I suspect that Jefferson and his household would have trained their
muskets on the drones and taken them down. I offer this historical
anachronism as a hypothetical only, not as one who is urging the
use of violence against the government.
Nevertheless,
what Jeffersonians are among us today? When drones take pictures
of us on our private property and in our homes, and the government
uses the photos as it wishes, what will we do about it? Jefferson
understood that when the government assaults our privacy and dignity,
it is the moral equivalent of violence against us. The folks who
hear about this, who either laugh or groan, cannot find it humorous
or boring that their every move will be monitored and photographed
by the government.
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