2008 Woodie Awards
Kerr tries his hand at redefining privacy
Issue date: 11/29/07 Section: Editorial
- Page 1 of 1
Your definition of privacy is probably not the same as Donald Kerr's, the principal deputy director of national intelligence.
According to a recent article at foxnews.com, Kerr stated that privacy can no longer mean anonymity in America, and the term should now be attributed to protecting people's private communications and financial information.
This statement is not surprising. Americans have been losing their privacy for years, from wire-tapping to accessing private personal e-mails.
Each action, of course, is declared under a guise that it's better, in some way, shape, or form, for American life or safety.
But anonymity is a powerful tool in our society. People can speak, act, work and practically live safe and sound without the threat of physical, mental, spiritual or emotional retaliation by an opposing force.
However, by scrapping the idea of anonymity in America, Kerr is attempting to suppress the American public to a state of fear or withdrawal equivalent to that of communist regimes.
In addition, if a top intelligence official feels Americans should redefine the term privacy to exclude anonymity, then we're afraid to ask how he's going to ask us to define the term private communications and financial information, because what is private to us may not be private to him.
And, unfortunately, his definition matters more than ours.
Top leaders and officials redefining terms and spinning their definition in order to leap-frog our constitutional rights and secure their dominant position is a disgusting way to encroach upon American citizens' freedom.
And the question is, when will it stop? Intelligence agencies should never interfere in American citizens' private matters or business; the constitution, or rather the original constitution, guaranteed us the right of anonymity if we so desired.
Yet when we have our own deputy director of national intelligence saying, however subtlety it may be, that we are not guaranteed full privacy, we must ask ourselves when will it stop?
The answer is, it won't.
At this rate, it won't be long before Kerr or another official steps up and redefines another word or the same word again and strips more freedom from Americans.
These words are not to be twisted and turned like Rubix Cubes. They are set in stone for a reason: to secure our way of life.
According to a recent article at foxnews.com, Kerr stated that privacy can no longer mean anonymity in America, and the term should now be attributed to protecting people's private communications and financial information.
This statement is not surprising. Americans have been losing their privacy for years, from wire-tapping to accessing private personal e-mails.
Each action, of course, is declared under a guise that it's better, in some way, shape, or form, for American life or safety.
But anonymity is a powerful tool in our society. People can speak, act, work and practically live safe and sound without the threat of physical, mental, spiritual or emotional retaliation by an opposing force.
However, by scrapping the idea of anonymity in America, Kerr is attempting to suppress the American public to a state of fear or withdrawal equivalent to that of communist regimes.
In addition, if a top intelligence official feels Americans should redefine the term privacy to exclude anonymity, then we're afraid to ask how he's going to ask us to define the term private communications and financial information, because what is private to us may not be private to him.
And, unfortunately, his definition matters more than ours.
Top leaders and officials redefining terms and spinning their definition in order to leap-frog our constitutional rights and secure their dominant position is a disgusting way to encroach upon American citizens' freedom.
And the question is, when will it stop? Intelligence agencies should never interfere in American citizens' private matters or business; the constitution, or rather the original constitution, guaranteed us the right of anonymity if we so desired.
Yet when we have our own deputy director of national intelligence saying, however subtlety it may be, that we are not guaranteed full privacy, we must ask ourselves when will it stop?
The answer is, it won't.
At this rate, it won't be long before Kerr or another official steps up and redefines another word or the same word again and strips more freedom from Americans.
These words are not to be twisted and turned like Rubix Cubes. They are set in stone for a reason: to secure our way of life.
