This is where your otherwise well reasoned letter took a fatal turn for the worst. Obama and leadership are not friends. They do not hangout together. They are strangers. What in Obama’s legislative, “community organizer”, law school lecturer background would ever possess you to use Obama and leadership in the same sentence. Voting “present” – NO. Giving a speech and then when it counts voting to fund the war you spoke against- NO. Please.

Obama Leadership the new oxymoron.

Let me just add, my story ends with the border guards in Finland knowing who I am, removing me from the train, acting as though they are going to interrogate me and then stating, “Welcome to the west!” and then they handed me a Coca Cola.

I wept, drop to my knees and kissed the ground… Everyone on the train opened their windows and cheered…

A moment etched in my mind forever…

Emptywheel,
is there any chance that someone could take this piece of crap legislation(if it passes in the Senate and is signed into law by Chimpy)before the SC, and they would strike it down too,like the GITMO proceedings, as unconstitutional?

Yes, I was just using a shorthand, the first one that came to mind. At any rate, it’s government using force to stifle the notion or power or exercise of personal will. It sounds as though you expressed some sort of value to personal will.

– Never thought cross-cultural exchange would lead the US to this state –

There is more than one way to skin a cat. I think the “power” thing is part of human nature, and that the power-elites will adopt whatever social norms are most likely to result in gaining elevated status within that social norm. In the US, the buzzword is “democracy.” If the public can be made to think it is exercising free choice in leadership, then it won’t become restless. The two party system serves member of both parties equally well. They are ALL elites and power brokers. Same extends down to the petty tyrants at town hall.

As for your issue with identity theft, that’s a privacy issue where the government does NOT intend for people outside of government to access your data. The government also does stupid things, like require SSN to appear on the face of military ID cards. Duh. They used to publish the SSN of nominees in the Congressional Record!

Anyway, I don’t trust the government to exercise good judgment, despite their best intentions. And at the level of Congressperson, I take them as presumptively lying every time they open their mouths. As evidence, I compare what they say with what they pass into law. Like a broken clock, sometimes they aren’t lying.

On FISA, I don’t believe they want to protect my privacy from NSA/FBI/DOJ prying eyes – they only want to protect it as against other members of the public.

…where I opine that in a choice between privacy (a subset of liberty) and security, people will choose security.

Once you have been a victim of identity theft like myself (and in my experience it was due to government regulatory compliance with the Patriot Act through my health insurance company) you understand that privacy IS security.

Feingold was spot on to request the unwanted data be destroyed.

I think if one was to restate the question with an understanding of what can happen to the individual with a lack of privacy, people can begin to understand privacy and security are inter-related and you cannot have one without the other. They are both subsets to liberty.

In the USSR and in China, the government is more active against threats to its own legitimacy.

I would have to amplify that statement. They (communist governments) are active against any action which does not fit the collective norm. This would be quite beyond the concept of threat against it’s own legitimacy.

I wish I could share my experience sometime. Then this concept would make more sense. My being detained had nothing to do with dissent (and I know, tongue and cheek stated above). My story use to make people physically ill. I use to travel the country sharing my story.

The power to enforce violence on individuals for no reason but to intimidate is an aspect of Communism which gives this power to the lowliest of government law enforcers as well as to the highest government power. Never thought cross-cultural exchange would lead the US to this state…Guess we are on our way…