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Any kid with with an effective enough foot can kick in my door and break into my house, but that does not make it right. Phones have GPS radios for many reasons. Communication is sophisticated business and there is still an expectation of privacy. Additionally, isn't this conversation about "big brother" watching us? I do not think we denying that fact, but rather discussing how far this watching should be taken. Again, if government drops the ball on things such as taxes and guns (IRS Scandal & Fast & Furious), can it be trusted to have access to our personal conversations, even if they swear they are only using meta data? Just like the gun control debates, this situation has opened up important discussions about where our country should and will go. Simply admitting that "big brother" watches us and going on with our lives is one action, but is it not important to pursue additional dialogue and really attempt to come to terms with where this could lead? I have not yet talked about constitutional law, but clearly past court decisions will play an important role as well as subsequent decisions. The ACLU has already filed suit and how things go should be of great interest to people who are not completely apathetic.

More up in RMNP. I'm on bed rest so staying inside right now, but according to hubby it was really awful and smoky yesterday. Glad Babs and Dylan are doing good.

I can't begin to tell you how badly I hate the "If you're not doing anything wrong, then why should you care?" argument.... So Island, you'll let the police come in and search your home, go through your things, and that wouldn't bother you assuming that you were doing nothing wrong? That's just complete insanity to me... I won't argue my thoughts on the constitution as I can't search them from here... But, at the very least, I would say that if you're going to push the limits of constitutional law, then you damn well should be required to show me some bad guys, right? So far the only ones that we're seeing eliminated stateside are those that have already killed Americans... Though we do see some of this stuff being used on the law abiding...Where is the parade of bad guys that we should be seeing?

It is giving the rush windbag crowd lots to cackle about. They are buying up tinfoil for hat making by the truckload. If they only knew that communications surveillance has been going on for decades going back to the days of AT&T longlines microwave systems. This hoopla is a case of what they don't know won't hurt them. My personal belief is that if you have no criminal or illegal activity to hide, then why are they getting their panties in a bunch over this. If the conspiracy theorists want to worry about something, worry about how happy the terrorists of the world will be by some moron giving away secret methods of surveillance. Even osama bin laden figured out they were being tracked by burn phone usage and went back to mules carrying messages from point to point through dead drops. I'll leave constitutional arguments to the academia crowd.