I don't know how many of you will click on this article. I know how many of you should. One hundred percent. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, 100%.

Mr. Schneier is an intelligent man and he expresses himself and his/my opinions much better than I ever could. The above article is about wire taps. It's about privacy. It's about the cock-and-bull excuses that we've been hearing from the Bush administration (not to mention Fox News). So what if I'm innocent? That doesn't mean I want the government listening in on my calls. If I want to mouth off about Bush, or have phone sex, or simply sing at the top of my lungs, I want to do so on the privacy of my own phone.

Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect...We do nothing wrong when we make love or go to the bathroom. We are not deliberately hiding anything when we seek out private places for reflection or conversation. We keep private journals, sing in the privacy of the shower, and write letters to secret lovers and then burn them. Privacy is a basic human need.

Two proverbs say it best: Quis custodiet custodes ipsos? ("Who watches the watchers?") and "Absolute power corrupts absolutely... Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance."

Privacy is not a guaranteed right in the Constitution because the founders of our country couldn't fathom a time when this fundamental human dignity would be taken away. It's a given. The right to conduct our lives as we choose is not an American right, not a God-given right, but simply a basic human necessity.

Without privacy, we revert to childhood when we were constantly under the watchful eyes of our parents. We are incapable of uniqueness and individuality because we know we are being watched, measured, and judged. This kind of behavior is not typical of the USA because we are not a dictatorship. Our country was founded on the principles of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Where is the life? The liberty? The happiness? I can pursue none if I have no privacy.

This is not a matter of "security versus privacy"; it's a matter of freedom. Do we, as Americans, want to give up our rights in order to fight a potential threat? Are we willing to give up our rights and all that America has represented in order to fight this "threat"? Surely there are better ways to fight "terrorism".

I'll let my hero Mr. Schneier sum it up:

Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide.

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