“It is shocking to me to see how outraged some politicians and the media are about the possibility a government agency might violate someone’s civil rights by listening in on a private phone conversation (in the course of protecting national security), while those same people seem to have no concern whatsoever when government violates property rights, our most basic civil rights, by imposing land use reglations that literally ’steal’ the use and value of private property to provide benefits to the public such as opensace and wildlife habitat.

While certainly protection for rights to privacy in phone conversations is important, the protection of property rights (rights to one’s property) is just as or even mor important.

Property rights are the cornerstone of our entire economic system, and without them our other civil rights could not survive.”

-Bill Moshofsky, President, Oregonians in Action