Remember, in fascist states the crime rate always drops to about 0%.

So there is no question that invasive wiretapping and other forms of monitoring successfully thwart crime.

Additionally, it's inevitable that if you extend a right to the public (for example the right to privacy), that a few people will exploit this right in order to commit a crime.

So there is no question that prohibiting the government to invade our privacy facilitates crime.

There are two questions that need to be asked here:

1 - Do we trust every member of the organizations which will be invading our privacy in order to protect us from crime? Are the organizations willing to be open about the ways that they have invaded our privacy, to ensure that they are doing what they claim?

2 - Is our fear of crime greater than our love for freedom? The thing that makes America special is not our national crime rate (Singapore, among others, has got us beat there) - it's our Bill of Rights. Are we willing to dilute that ideal just to lower our crime rate?

Land of the Free, anyone?