No Such Thing as Absolute Privacy Says Director Comey

(CNN) “FBI Director James Comey warned Wednesday that Americans should not have expectations of “absolute privacy” . . . “

“There is no such thing as absolute privacy in America; there is no place outside of judicial reach,” Comey said at a Boston College conference on cybersecurity. He made the remark as he discussed the rise of encryption since 2013 disclosures by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed sensitive US spy practices.

“Even our communications with our spouses, with our clergy members, with our attorneys are not absolutely private in America,” Comey added. “In appropriate circumstances, a judge can compel any one of us to testify in court about those very private communications.

Comey may be correct. There is no such thing as absolute privacy . . . but neither is there a such a thing as absolute freedom. The government isn’t interested in your privacy, or your rights to free speech, or your rights to be secure in your papers and effects. It is interested in its increasing its own power everywhere by any means possible.

The government has made slaves out of all of us. We have to register to vote; register to get a driver’s license; register our cars; register our changes of address with the IRS; register with the state for taxes; register with the county to pay its taxes; register to have a cell phone; register for cable TV; register to buy a plane ticket; and, register to get a passport. Everywhere we go and everything we do is being surveyed, watched, and recorded. From cradle to grave their is a paper trail . . . and now their is a video trail.

John Whithhead says, “we live in a dictatorship disguised as a democracy where all that we own, all that we earn, all that we say and do—our very lives—depends on the benevolence of government agents and corporate shareholders for whom profit and power will always trump principle.”

This is our world. We have no rights, only privileges . . . and, they can be taken away anytime by the whim of a judge.

Storm Brooks

Posted 3/8/2017