The Privacy Illusion 198
LoLobey writes "Scott Adams has an entertaining entry on his Dilbert Blog about the perception of privacy. He writes, 'It has come to my attention that many of my readers in the United States believe they have the right to privacy because of something in the Constitution. That is an unsupportable view. A more accurate view is that the government divides the details of your life into two categories: 1. Stuff they don't care about. 2. Stuff they can find out if they have a reason.' His post is written in response to some reader comments on another entry about privacy guardians and how swell life would be if we voluntarily gave up certain personal info."
the constitution (Score:2, Informative)
The first block of ammendments to the US constitution called the Bill of Rights is just an enumeration of the more abused natural human rights in the time of the US Revolutionary War until it's passage.
The Bill of Rights was mostly opposed at the time by those who feared that unenumerated natural rights would later be denied.
Privacy is a natural human right that must be defended by the courts and populace even if it didn't end up in the rights sampler called the Bill of Rights.
The US constitution only enumerates and codifies protections against the federal and sometimes lower levels of government, natural human rights also include protections against other people and corporations, hence for example laws against murder and stealing but even in their absence the ability to make common law accusation if breached.
Re:What people really want (Score:1, Informative)
No.
What people really want is shelter, food and safety. Freedom and to be let alone are priorities only for a handful of us-ian traditionalist.
Re:Why the government? (Score:4, Informative)
Spiegel had a very good series of articles on different forms of governance, their strengths and weaknesses. Here is a link to part 4 (China) and you can find links to introduction as well as parts 1-3 (Brazil, US, Denmark) in the preamble of the article:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/putting-the-plan-into-action-how-china-s-leaders-steer-a-massive-nation-a-843593.html [spiegel.de]