DNI Office Asks Why People Trust Facebook More Than the Government

Daniel_Stuckey writes "General Counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Robert S. Litt explained that our expectation of privacy isn't legally recognized by the Supreme Court once we've offered it to a third party. Thus, sifting through third party data doesn't qualify 'on a constitutional level' as invasive to our personal privacy. This he brought to an interesting point about volunteered personal data, and social media habits. Our willingness to give our information to companies and social networking websites is baffling to the ODNI. 'Why is it that people are willing to expose large quantities of information to private parties but don't want the Government to have the same information?,' he asked."

Comments

Neither

[aaaaaaargh!]

Have canceled my FB account a long time ago, but still caon't opt out of the government.

Re:Executive Power

[readin]

Also, the government is granted power because we DON'T want private parties to have that power.

Exactly. We want a clean distinction between those who are allowed to use force to ruin our lives, and those who are granted other abilities. The government by definition has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence for purposes other than self-defence. Having been given that, we should be very wary every time we consider giving them any additional power.

When we let the government start interfering in those parts of our lives that have previously been dealt with through private means, we are doing exactly what you warn against - we're mixing private and government power.