<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On Aug 6, 2005, at 6:33 PM, Paul wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">On 8/6/05, <B class="gmail_sendername">Dan Clemmensen</B> <<A href="mailto:dgc@cox.net">dgc@cox.net</A>> wrote:<DIV><SPAN class="gmail_quote"></SPAN><BLOCKQUOTE class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> As a society we in the US have shown a distressing tendency to give up<BR>freedoms to counter terrorists.As long as we are going in this direction<BR>anyway, why not go a bit further. If we give up the (non-existent) right <BR>to privacy in public, we can make it much harder on terrorists.<BR><BR></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>What exactly do you mean by non-existent? I can agree there is no particular right not to be surveilled in public by authorities today or watched by the people around you. At least I don't know of any relevant case law claiming such a right. There are limits on what may be recorded and by whom in what circumstances but I suspect those to fall as the technology improves, becomes ubiquitous and since the technology has many other highly beneficial usages. However, in practice, the government does not today track all of the movements and activities of all its citizens. Doing so is becoming technologically possible. But is it desirable? What kind of safeguards must be put in to make such a practice less of a real danger to everyone except those currently favored by those in power? How would/should the information be guarded and limited in use? Who would have access and for what purposes?</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Without a very high level of respect for personal freedom, diversity and protection of dissent I fear mass public data collection of this kind although I am generally very much for most of what leads to it and for the other uses of the technology.</DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"><DIV>- samantha</DIV></BODY></HTML>