Thanks for listening to Intelligent Squared U.S. When does learning begin? Are we at the end of privacy?

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A smart old guy once said, and I paraphrase, if you don't want your enemies knowing your secrets,

then don't share them with your friends. That was Benjamin Franklin, who obviously had a well-developed sense of privacy himself.

As did his friends, the framers of the Constitution, when they went on to add the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution,

and that is the one that bars the government from searching our houses and from going through our stuff without a good reason

and without a warrant. But none of those framer guys really foresaw this world of the Internet and mobile phones,

and the government's present practice of sweeping up huge amounts of data from both of these sources on us.

And the question is, does that violate the framers intent? What would Ben Franklin say about all of this?

Well, that sounds like the making of a debate, so let's have it. Yes or no to this statement.

Mass collection of US phone records violates the Fourth Amendment, a debate from intelligence-squared US.

I'm John Dunvenn, we are here at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

We have four superbly qualified debaters, two against two, arguing four and against this motion.

Mass collection of US phone records violates the Fourth Amendment.

And here, to argue for the motion, let's first meet, debater number one, please welcome Alex Abdo.

And now it's just a little biography on you, you're a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.

You are involved in the ACLU's lawsuit against the NSA's phone record program.

In June of 2013, pertin to your case, it was revealed that Verizon was required to turn phone records over to the NSA.

And as it turns out, your outfit at the ACLU is a Verizon customer.

So my question is, does this now mean you all switch massively to AT&T or Sprint?

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