Definition Changing for People's 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.

How lovely for Kerr to think that way. You silly Americans; let me tell you what you can have. What should happen is that our intelligence and law enforcement agencies need to work within the confines of our Constitution and laws. If they can't work within those confines, they need to show why they can't, so we can consider going about the business of amending the Constitution.

One problem with the land grab like the one Kerr describes is that there's been no evidence presented that it's either necessary or useful. Instead, what evidence exists shows that it's a crutch, violating our traditional notions of privacy with little benefit.

The other -- huge! -- problem is that the government cannot be trusted to properly safeguard private communications and financial information. That has been made clear in recent years. Business is even worse, unless it's strategically competitive information, of course.

Perhaps the definition that needs to be changed defines suitable government employees. Rather than the Kerrs and Chertoffs, who feel it is their position to determine what we can demand, we need people who will recognize that a Constitution and body of privacy protection laws exists, and that their inability to do their jobs without dreaming up ways around those things suggests their incompetence, not a need for the American people to change how they live their lives.

Amen.