3/6/08

Privacy matters...

A story on the continued inability of the FBI to properly protect citizen's privacy in its investigations and another on the creation of a nationwide computer data system linking investigative organizations. Both beg the question, "Who's watching the watchers?"

Privacy matters, the ability to know that your life is free from undue scrutiny is a bedrock of a free society. Quite frankly this current administration has, in my opinion, significantly eroded the protections that ordinary citizens have from government and corporate interests having access to all kinds of details of our lives whether there is just cause or not. The current strategy of protecting against "terrorism" by leaving borders undefended and large parts of our commercial infrastructure uninspected while increasingly invading the privacy of people just trying to go about their lives seems to have left sense behind.

Someone once said that those who choose to give up their freedoms for security will end up with neither and government, with corporate cooperation, is in the process of making that nightmare come true. Sadly very few in the political class seem to care about this and the issue still hasn't made it above the horizon in the current campaigns. Too many people are focused on the details while the foundations are slowly being hacked away. What 's actually more important, that people have some help with a mortgage or have the freedom to live their lives without some government hack taking a cruise through your private life whenever they feel like it? Do the math.

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