Digital surveillance is a violation of human rights in the same way a policeman cannot enter your house without warrant to observe you and search you. This is o

Digital surveillance is a violation of human rights in the same way a policeman cannot enter your house without warrant to observe you and search you. This is one of the oldest principles in modern political thought and it stretches back to at least Semayne's Case in 1604. Your neighbor has a right to sleep in his home. If you blast music, you are disturbing the serenity of his home. That is a different question than the government coming into your private affairs to spy on you. If you really believe that your assertion is applicable, apply it to this circumstance (digital surveillance), rather than setting up a different argument (music and sleep) where your assertion better applies. Your assertion essentially amounts to "all clear principles are bad because they obscure exceptions." First, this is reflexive -- it applies to itself. Second, it is the burden of the exception to prove itself, not the burden of the rule to prove all of its own exceptions; the government needs a reason specific to me in order to observe my private affairs, and in absence of such a warrant I have a blanket protection from those observations.