Welcome to The Surveillance State- Population You

This from the indomitable Glenn Greenwald. The context here is a new surveillance program under which computer programs will track, trace, and look for patterns in even the most insignificant actions we take in our daily lives.

As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information. . . .

So basically, according to the feds, its ok for them to get hold of just about any piece of information, as long as they do not disclose the information. And a rebuttal:

"Anonymity has been important since the Federalist Papers were written under pseudonyms," [EFF Senior Staff Lawyer Kurt] Opsahl said. "The government has tremendous power: the police power, the ability to arrest, to detain, to take away rights. Tying together that someone has spoken out on an issue with their identity is a far more dangerous thing if it is the government that is trying to tie it together."