Privacy? Confidentiality? Secrets? Fahgetaboutit.

[Cyrano]

Any politician (Dem or Thug) that thinks that such a thing as privacy or confidentiality still exists is an idiot. Never mind Eliot Spitzer. I'm talking about all of them.

In the film "Goodfellas," Pauly (Paul Sorvino) "got it." He never ever talked on the phone, ever, to anyone.

In the film "Casino," Joe Pesci's character "got it." He knew the FBI was using lip readers and would cover his mouth when talking in public.

There's a lesson here for all of us. We now have a government that has virtually absolute power to see, hear and know everything about us. Hell, they even have satellites that can tell if we just blew your nose.

With the disappearance of confidentiality and privacy, we might as well tear up the Bill of Rights. None of them mean anything if those in power have the ability to nullify them on a whim or an "executive order."

My point here is that technology has made the Bill of Rights obsolete. (And, for anyone who doesn't know what the Bill of Rights are, they are the first ten amendments to the Constitution.)

So here's my question. What do we do now?

[theboss]

1. I would stop using the phone to commit crimes

That's just me.

[Cyrano]

3. Okay, I get it. If you didn't do anything wrong, why would you object to the

government monitoring your entire life?

I'm not quite sure yet how to respond to that, but let me count the ways.

[theboss]

5. I see no problems with warrants for wiretaps

It is an essential law enforcement tool as long as there is oversight. I don't know how you stop crime in the modern age without the ability to monitor phone calls and computer transactions.

But there needs to be a process in place - and there has been one for at least 50 years. The process is fine.

[leftofcool]

4. And don't mail hookers a personal check

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. Pshaw. That's simple:

Work to change this state of affairs. Take our rights back. Nicely, if we can. Not that I think it can be done as nicely as we might want.

There is too much money being made out of taking away our rights, you see.

[Cyrano]

6. It's not just a matter of money. It's a matter of technology.

That technology now exists and can be used by any administration.

You can't put the genie back into the bottle.

So given that any administration could/would use what's available to them, how do we go about protecting what we once considered to be our basic human rights?

[theboss]

7. Have oversight

And recognize that your zone of privacy has always been rather limited.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

9. I am not ready to accept that.

That is a repuke-injected social meme from the last several years. Just because they say it does not make it true, as we so well know.

[theboss]

11. So, we should ban all wiretaps? All witness monitoring?

How would you ever prosecute an Organized Crime case?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

12. Hell no.

I didn't say that. What I am arguing here is the fact that it has all gotten away from us, it is used too much and too indiscriminately. Too much drift-netting. It is also being used for situations where it was never intended.

In fact, we do not really know how the data collected by the NSA and other agencies, domestically, IS being used. We certainly cannot rely on this toxic maladministration for a straigh answer on the topic.

[theboss]

13. Warrantless wiretaps and the NSA is a separate issue

It's best not to confuse them with this.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

14. It is all part of a whole.

Or did you not see the post in GD about how the DoJ is investigating 5 Dems to every repuke? Of course you did.

I respectfully submit that you might be ignoring the linkages between a lot of seemingly disparate threads. These linkages point to a consistent pattern of behavior by this administration and its use of the justice and security apparatus it controls.

None of this is a discreet, stand-alone occurrence. Everything this maladministration is, and should be, suspect. If one hasn't learned that by now, I submit they have been one of the walking comatose.

And yes, their ethos has trickled down, in many malignant ways, to the state and local level.

[theboss]

15. I frankly don't accept that figure

I have no idea how it was calculated.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

16. I live in NJ.

I consider that a real possible figure. Google "Chris Christie" for more.

[theboss]

17. NJ is also probably the second most corrupt state in the country behind LA

I'm not sure that investigating a thoroughly corrupt political system that is controlled by Democrats is an indication of bias against democrats.

Has there ever been a mayor of Newark, Camden, Atlantic City or Asbury Park who didn't go to jail?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

8. Through laws...

That restrict the violation of our rights through the use of these technologies.

Or perhaps, we need a constitutional convention to establish new amendments to the Bill of Rights, amendments that reflect new technological realities.

Any way you slice it, the government is being assaulted, daily, by technology feather merchants who tells them that they have theis great new software that does all this neat stuff that abrogates rights and privacy. We need a bright line of law to tell the government what software capabilities they cannot have and that these feather merchants cannot produce and market.

[Cyrano]

10. Sorry, but I can't agree. Any such laws would be redundant and useless.

Technology can only be fought with technology. It's why you probably have McAfee, Norton, or some other protective system in your computer.

Think about it for a moment. Do you really think any laws would have stopped Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, or our "Decider" from doing whatever the hell they wanted to do, whenever they wanted to do it, and to whomever they wanted to do it to?

On edit: The only way to fight technological "spying" is with technological defenses. And then they will come up with new ways of "spying" and we will have to come up with new ways of countering their new technology, ad infinitum. The only way it will ever end is when/if humanity outgrows its adolescence.