Given my prior experience as a special agent with the Secret Service I am frequently asked about the NSA revelations. This is a very big deal for two important reasons. First, blanket surveillance and collection is an excuse to avoid practical reforms in our counter-terrorism efforts which would both respect our civil liberties and make our efforts more effective. My experience with information in the hands of government is that it will be abused, it’s only a matter of time. Second, information privacy is a zero-sum game, it cannot belong to you and the government at the same time. There is only one key to open the door which separates the “private-self” and the “public-self”. These two selves are always two different and distinct people as we do not act the exact same way in public as we do when we are alone. In a free country you control when to use the key and when to open the door and let people in to see the “private-self”, in a totalitarian regime that key is owned by the government and the “private-self” fails to exist. This is no small distinction. Finally, did you notice that many of the politicians arguing […]
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