The title is shamelessly stolen from Nicole Black at  Sui Generis because I couldn’t possibly come up with a better one.  According to this AP story, our idea of privacy has outlived its usefulness.

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people’s private communications and financial information.

This statement comes in the context of Congress’ decision to confer immunity on the telecoms for doing whatever the government asks them to do.  Remember, we exist to help the government, which exists to help us.  But somebody has to make the decisions that affect every aspect of our lives, and if you can’t trust  your attorney general to do it for you, who can you trust?

Call me old school, but I like to think that I am in charge of my own privacy.  It’s my privacy, my call.  If I choose to give up certain information, I can do so.  If I choose not to, you may not give me a credit card or a mortgage, but that’s the risk I take.  As far as what goes on in my bedroom, don’t even go there.  I still think I should be able to walk anywhere in the United States without having to give my identity to anyone, and I should be able to pay cash at a store and not be required to divulge a thing about me. 

But that’s my antiquated notion.  The Government thinks differently:

“Our job now is to engage in a productive debate, which focuses on privacy as a component of appropriate levels of security and public safety,” Kerr said. “I think all of us have to really take stock of what we already are willing to give up, in terms of anonymity, but (also) what safeguards we want in place to be sure that giving that doesn’t empty our bank account or do something equally bad elsewhere.”

So the new definition is that privacy is a component of security.  In other words, we can have all the privacy we want, provided it is subject to whatever invasion the government deems necessary for public safety.  We just need to readjust our rights sights, apparently.

I have this vision in my head that there’s some fat man with a shit-eating grin on his face somewhere in the bowels of government muttering to himself, “I can’t believe they’re buying this crap!”

This just isn’t my idea of what freedom was all about.  I had occasion to read Federalist #31 the other night (don’t ask).  In it, Publius (a/k/a James Madison) argues that the power of government to tax isn’t usurpation, since the purposes to which our money is put are those we seek and the decision to tax is made by those we choose.  They would never abuse our trust, Madison contends, because they are us.  We are them.  Our government is what we make our government to be.  I wonder if David Giacolone at  f/k/a will tell me that my interpretation is wrong.  In Haiku.

Benjamin Franklin said, “Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”  It’s disconcerting that our government, far more powerful and distant from the People than Publius ever imagined, has abandoned freedom in its effort to gain control.  Is it really for security, or just because the exploitation of fear has allowed it to finally have the power and authority over us that the institution of government has long wanted and believed it deserved.

What I cannot figure out is how the people who hold power in government for a brief moment really think it’s in the best interest of America to accumulate so much power that our ideals exist only in empty rhetoric?  Surely, they must realize that one day they will be out of power, and their opposition will hold the power that they now accumulate for themselves.  Aren’t they afraid of this?

Regardless, I find myself thinking that Ben Franklin knew better than James Madison.