Common Sense Soapbox
About this show
Short videos with a punchy, comedic tone and entertaining Socratic characters taking on trending issues and important concepts from a classical liberal perspective, written & animated by Seamus Coughlin.
The Government Is Definitely Still Watching You
August 25, 2020
When Seamus is arrested for spying on other people’s conversations about economics, it becomes pretty clear that the government doesn’t actually frown on monitoring the actions and communications of individuals. They just frown on OTHER people doing it. Despite the initial outcry when Edward Snowden leaked the details of the US government’s domestic surveillance apparatus to the public, the broad and often warrant-less collection of metadata continues to happen. Constant surveillance leads to serious problems, not least of which is self-censorship.
CREDITS:
Written by Seamus Coughlin, Jen Maffessanti, and Sean W. Malone
Animated by Seamus Coughlin
Produced & Edited by Sean W. Malone
LINKS:
- https://www.oyez.org/cases/1967/35
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/nsa-surveillance-may-be-legal--but-its-unconstitutional/2013/06/21/b9ddec20-d44d-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html
- https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324904004578535670310514616
- https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/11/only-2-of-federal-criminal-defendants-go-to-trial-and-most-who-do-are-found-guilty/
- https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2015/03/16/americans-views-on-government-surveillance-programs/
- https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2017/01/the-watchers
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/30/nsa-americans-metadata-year-documents
- https://www.wired.com/2015/03/data-and-goliath-nsa-metadata-spying-your-secrets
- https://www.wired.com/2013/06/phew-it-was-just-metadata-not-think-again
- https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-are-the-nsa
- https://www.propublica.org/article/nsa-data-collection-faq
- https://fee.org/articles/why-the-surveillance-state-is-dangerous/
- https://fee.org/articles/mass-surveillance-is-spreading-along-with-covid-19/
