Reply #57: It's not worse. It's more like risking a renewed acceptance of those sorts of violations. [View All]

Look at some of the reactions to the level of illegal immigration. There are people clamoring to change the law of automatic citizenship by birth because they're distracted by the "anchor baby" issue. Some are in essence calling for a large and permanent second class residents by letting foreign workers come here on long term permits with no hope of achieving permanent residency. There are also those who believe that airport screening should pretty much be limited to those who "look" muslim.

In a separate vein, the "I've got nothing to hide" attitude is troublesome because it assumes that there is an obligation to go along with any such request as proof that you're honest or a good citizen. Again, Brandeis and the concept of the right to be let alone. People who are living honest lives aren't required to disprove a presumption of guilt -- rather, the underlying principle is that the state has to disprove the presumption of innocence. Internment camps were a classic example of people going along with the upside down version -- Japanese-Americans who weren't doing anything wrong should have been glad to help the country by living in a remote camp where they couldn't blow up the west coast, right?