Stewardship, and Our Responsibility to Future Generations

I just read Roy Balleste's excellent post at Circle ID blog, Privacy and the Future: Are We Good Trustees of the Internet? He speaks eloquently about the need to safeguard against the government encroachment on privacy online.  But something about the post makes me think about a conversation I had weeks ago with my 23 year old daughter.

I was talking about the revelations of the NSA and DEA tapping citizen and foreign e-mails, phone conversations, and building or accessing huge databases of both types of traffic. I was just amazed and dismayed when my daughter's reaction was, "DUH! We always assumed they were listening. What are you upset about?"

It is one thing to be cynical about your government.  (and sneer at your parents regarding technology)  It is something else entirely to cede your Fourth Amendment rights without a blink. 

Once you give up Constitutional rights, I think you probably will have to shed blood to get them back. Just like the Minuteman decorating this blog post. Frederick Douglass told us, "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and it never will."

The image is the The Minute Man, a statue by Daniel Chester French erected in 1875 in Concord, Massachusetts. The photo was originally at the National Park Service page,  http://www.nps.gov/mima/education.htm, which now is a 404 message. The image is on Wikimedia Commons.