The Inconvenience Should Be Theirs

This quote has been bugging me:

“I think it’s important to recognize that you can’t have 100 per cent security and also then have 100 per cent privacy and zero inconvenience,”

(Of course, the President was the one who said it.) But the fact that he said it bothers me and the fact that this is the choice we apparently have to make in this day and age bothers me more. I'm conflicted, I really am. I'm just supposed to trust that the government isn't going to use this information for nefarious purposes? Let's leave aside my libertarian leanings and look at this from an agéd hippie point of view: what the hell happened to not trusting anyone over thirty? Why should we trust the man? Why did we Occupy Wall Street? Why the vote for hope and change? We were promised hope and change and got a whole plate more of the same and lame excuses.

A lot of things slipped past in the aftermath of September 11th and people didn't care enough. At the time, faced with a massive security failure that had lead to a horrific terrorist attack, the Patriot Act looked... extreme but not unreasonable. Now, it's become clear that moment was the moment where Bush the Younger swung for the fences and started rolling the Executive Branch back to its pre-Watergate power days and President Obama should have started rolling it the other way- but more power is more power. And while Dems might things that more power for GOPers is a bad thing, there's no doubt that they like it plenty while GOPers get nauseous at Dems with that much power.

Either way, there's too much power.

I think I'm moving towards the notion that 100% security isn't worth it if we compromise our principles to get their. Freedom, democracy, the Constitution- they matter more. 100% privacy is probably unreachable unless you want to live in the desert and not use the internet at all and pay for everything with cash. (After this week, I'm starting to wonder if the off-the-gridders might have a point.) As for the inconveniences, 100% of it should be borne by the government. Protecting the Homeland shouldn't be impossible but it should be a hell of a lot harder than it's proven to be.