Beware the barbarians

I enjoy reading Dan Weaver's Upstream blog.

Recently Dan took some time off to contemplate whether or not he wanted to continue the blog. I'm pleased to report he's decided to stick with it.

He announced his decision in an excellent post today that discusses the current state of homeland security. Whether you consider yourself left, right or center you should read it.

Can you hear me now?

I haven’t quite made up my mind how I feel about the whole NSA phone data collection issue.

On the surface it feels like a borderline privacy issue, but I don’t see where there is anything illegal about it—so long as the government doesn’t force phone companies to turn over the records without a warrant.

Otherwise, they’re the phone companies’ records. They can do what they want with them. It’s no different than any other company selling your info to telemarketers/spammers.

When Kris first heard about this last night she thought it was no big deal, saying, “Didn’t people figure they were doing this already?”

So I guess it sounds like I’m in the “no big deal” camp after all. If it’s within the law, which this seems like it is, and it keeps planes from falling out of the sky, then I guess I’m okay with it.