Ok, so tell me why you are concerned about the government having this data...

[zaj]

89. Not remotely either...

You don't know me, so I get any suspicion about my identity or motives. I'll say I've been here for nearly a decade. That's a long run of a sock puppet.

But I don't get how my argument, purely on it's merits, either either the work of a sock puppet (presumably for the right?). And more specifically, how do you specifically interpret my argument as saying anything about the "evil left" in any way.

I don't condem the left.

I'm challenging the conversation of the moment on the left and across the entire country.

I'm asking that those on the left, not let the right - particularly the Tea Party, anti-government right - allow the discussion to be framed as bag government.

I'm also asking that all people recognize the specific point of failure, which is in the agreements with Verizon and Google, that permit these companies to keep and own the data like this.

This discussion of privacy starts in the private sector.

And when we on the left allow the discussion to focus specifically and only the actions of the government, we lose both the immediate battle over the left-right today, specifically voter enthusiasm and turnout in 2014 (just like what happened in 2010 after healthcare). And we lose the two longer, more essential policy discussions. Both the discussion about the role of government in our lives and the nature of privacy and how we should handle all of this mounting private data.

If you are concerned about the use of that data by the government, you should also be concerned about it's use by private interests. And if you trust Obama or Google, then think Bush and Koch.