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a team that was the fourth-ranked team in the world. The team was set to travel to Manchester, England, for an international competition in July 2010. The problem arose from the fact that the Iroquois govern themselves, independent of the U.S. government, and thus issue their own passports. More importantly, these passports symbolize that independence; in the words of one of the players, “it’s a huge deal because these visas mean so much to our sovereignty.” Before the Iroquois team’s flight abroad, the British consulate declined to recognize their tribal passports and informed the Iroquois that “it would only issue visas to the team upon receiving written assurance from the United States government that the Iroquois had been granted clearance to travel on their own documents and would be allowed back into the United States.”19

The State Department and the Department of Homeland Security refused to grant the team this request. Only after public embarrassment at the debacle did Secretary of State Hillary Clinton finally agree to waive the travel restrictions. The next time you believe that the government has your best interests at heart when it restricts the freedom to travel, remember this story of the government’s unjust treatment of the Iroquois Lacrosse Team. Perhaps next time they should carry fake weapons instead of tribal documents, as that would at least guarantee them a one-in-four chance of successfully reaching their destination.

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Conclusion

In sum, the urge to move about the world, after self-preservation, is the most fundamental of human yearnings. Although our human desires to think and work hard may be chilled with free speech restrictions and taxation, as animate beings we lose our naturally endowed vitality when the government mandates where we can and cannot go. Thus, the right to travel is not only essential to, but symbolizes freedom. Perhaps then it should come as no surprise that curfews, internment camps, and unlawful imprisonment are common denominators amongst despotic regimes. Why erode freedom with the slow but unstoppable tide of indoctrination, when tyrannical leaders can achieve their end goal—complete subordination—much more efficiently with restrictions on the right to travel? Although the government may claim to have our best interests at heart when it commands who may go where and at what times, to grant it that power is to subject our liberty to the beneficence of a government which legitimized slavery for two hundred years. The current War on Terror proves that without the constraints imposed by our withering Constitution, it would continue to do so for many years to come.

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Chapter 6

You Can Leave Me Alone:

The Right to Privacy

On a Saturday morning, have you ever found yourself with nothing to do? Maybe you decided to take a trip to New York City and spend time with your best friend from college. Together you visit the South Street Seaport and take in the views of Brooklyn while grabbing lunch. Once you finish your meal, the two of you decide to stroll by the Stock Exchange in the Financial District and then pay your respects at Ground Zero. After an exhausting day, you return to your friend’s apartment and realize you left your cell phone on the couch. Your phone shows five missed calls, all from your mother, who has been in a “tizzy” all day because she could not reach you. You tell her to calm down and not to worry. The government watched you all day.

That’s right. The government watched your every move while you were in downtown Manhattan. In response to the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks, the New York Police Department (NYPD) implemented the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative (LMSI). Starting in 2007 (if it was so imperative why did they wait six years?), the NYPD installed more than three thousand public cameras and one hundred license-plate-reading devices. These publicly owned cameras, cameras of private landowners, and the publicly owned license-plate-reading devices are fed into an operations center manned by uniformed police. And while you