> It seems to me that the U.S. needs to have a broader discussion about what levels of government surveillance and intrusiveness into private lives we are comfo

> It seems to me that the U.S. needs to have a broader discussion about what levels of government surveillance and intrusiveness into private lives we are comfortable with. Actually I don't really want to have that discussion, both because a lot people who would be involved in the discussion probably don't respect privacy, and because the outcome of the discussion anyway is moot: privacy is paramount, regardless of what "most people" think. Since the enemies of privacy have the entire resources of the state at their disposal - and I'm including the media in that - and since the average person has not proved up to the task of defending his own privacy, it seems that the only way we're going to have it is by making it a technological inevitability. While we're at it, I'll assert the same of liberty in general. Contemporary nation-states have transitioned from simmering hostility to liberty and civil rights, to open and sneering contempt.