Official: People should change their definition of privacy
If you grew up in a small town, you may be wondering what all the fuss over privacy is really about.
If you’re old enough to remember party line telephones, you might even wonder what the word means.
In those days, the term often referred to the privileged class, and others who were financially equipped to appear to be privileged.
Since then, the idea of privacy has blossomed into a full blown “God given” right. Some attribute that growth to the baby boomers, and some others to the anti-war fever of the 70′s.
And now, some years after 9/11, we’re still redefining it.
That’s the most important idea here: the definition of “Privacy” is changing, even as we talk about it.
And if the definition of “privacy” is indeed a work in progress, then we have to accept the notion that it may continue to change, especially as our enemies change.
As someone once put it, it is important not to blow a hole in the dike while arguing over whose finger should plug the leak.
Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence, recently weighed in on this subject.
WASHINGTON (AP) – As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.
Privacy no longer could mean anonymity, said Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people’s information.
Kerr’s comments come as Congress is taking a second look at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Lawmakers hastily changed the 1978 law last summer to allow the government to eavesdrop inside the United States without court permission, so long as one end of the conversation reasonably was believed to be outside the U.S.
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