Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence, says that it is time for Americans to rethink our definition of Privacy. He states that privacy should no longer mean anonymity, but that government and businesses should properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information. I don't believe this is what he is really saying, but lets deal with it first. I thought these things were already supposed to be safeguarded. Isn't that why we continually receive privacy statements from just about everybody? Besides, we have seen several cases this year where businesses and government have failed to safeguard our information. The deputy director's statement is ridiculous. Privacy shouldn't mean safeguarding our information; safeguarding our information should mean safeguarding our information.

I think what Mr. Kerr is really saying is that we should allow government to collect our information as they see fit. In other words, there should be no privacy. I have to be honest, a few years ago I would have thought this to be no big deal, but this belief would have been based on emotion and not rational thought. If we give up any liberty, even something as small as this, we are surrendering it to the terrorists. We are always being told that the terrorists want to take away our freedom, by redefining privacy we move them one step closer to that objective. Let's say we allow our privacy rights to be taken away and the terrorism problem continues to worsen, do we then accept warrantless search and seizure? And if the problem continues to worsen after that do we keep suspending more of our liberty? This can only take us down a path that leads to victory for the terrorists.

Even if every American agreed with this rethinking of privacy, it would only lead to the terrorists rethinking of communication. I wouldn't doubt that the terrorists are already doing this. We have been discussing wiretapping and privacy for years. By the time government gets a system in place the terrorists will have already found a new way to communicate. Redefining privacy may make us feel better, but it will do very little to make us safer today and will do nothing to make our children safer in the future. This continual need to fight terrorism by suspending liberty only displays this administration's lack of vision and imagination. I can't help but wonder, is this administration trying to end terrorism or just trying to prevent it during their time in office?