RIGHT TO PRIVATE INVESTIGATION IS
A FREE NATION RIGHT

By Ralph Thomas

 

 

The demand, right and permit for the collection of information and investigation by the citizens of a county only exists in a free country. By restricting or taking away those rights, you also take away a right that has to do with freedom of choice. Freedom of choice can only be practiced when a citizen has the ability and the tools to collect information to make an informed choice. Take those rights away and you leave the concept of freedom of choice nothing but an empty shell that, for all practical purposes, can not be practiced.

 

Throughout the history of mankind, you'll find that the right of the people within a free nation also have a right to private investigation. The two go hand in hand. The recent collapse of the USSR is a good example. During communism, there was no right nor permit for private citizens to conduct investigations and background checks. Only the government and the KGB could do that. However, as soon as the USSR collapsed, a private investigative industry emerged as businesses and private citizens saw the want and the need to collect information in order to practice freedom. Within a mere year of this country moving into a free-flowing economic system- a private investigative industry quickly grew up in the old USSR and an investigative association for them was formed.

 

In a free nation-the right to total and absolute privacy is a myth. True-there is a certain level of privacy of certain information that must be maintained and must be protected. However, if you want freedom, a certain degree of privacy needs to be given up to insure for the commonwealth of the free society. The only place absolute privacy really exists is in places like Cuba where there is no permit nor demand for investigation by the county's citizenship. Take a look at it-it's a starving, crumbling nation with no opportunity.

 

Let us not just ponder the disadvantages of the free flow of information-for there are disadvantages to everything man has ever thought up. There are disadvantages to democracy as it sometimes moves slow, their are disadvantages to the speed of travel we have invented in the form of vehicles, planes and rockets as it sometimes kills people. Yes there are advantages and disadvantages to everything so if you are going to report the disadvantages, also report the advantages because when it comes to the rights of the American people to check, verify and investigate, it's a right inherent and built into the practice of freedom of choice.

 

Are we going to become a police state in which only the government has the right of investigation, only the government has the right to access information that's used to make an informed decision and only the government that can perform a background check? What about the private citizen's rights and a business person's rights to collect and verify information to prevent crime, reduce waste, weed out fraud, prepare defenses, collect the nonpayment of bills, identify white collar crime and make intelligent decisions based on the collection of facts? What would happen to those rights?

 

Knee-jerk reactions and condemnation without investigation leaves us all in an everlasting state or ignorance. Take away the right for private investigation or the tools to do it with and what do you have left? What you would have is everlasting devalued rights to practice freedom of choice and practice in a free economy because massive numbers of people would be left in a state of ignorance and unable to practice freedom. Information and the right to obtain it is an ingrained part of practicing freedom in the first place.

 

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