Government should expect no privacy

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for March 25, 2026)

Privacy is important. Not because you have anything to hide, but because it's no one's business. Otherwise, let's get rid of restroom doors, curtains, or anything else which might shield our activities from everyone else's eyes.

Companies that help government spy on the people are doing wrong. Digital ID. Flock cameras. Age verification. TSA scanners. Government's co-conspirators are not the good guys.

Not all surveillance is a bad thing, though.

You should know everything about anyone who holds a government office. At the same time, they shouldn’t be able to learn anything about you. As long as those offices are allowed to exist- and they shouldn't be- the standard should be that while you hold any government job, your life is an open book. Everything you do is subject to scrutiny and disclosure. No secrets at all, not even those you feel government is entitled to keep from the people. Because those don't exist. Privacy for government and none for the people is exactly backwards.

National security is no excuse. Public safety is no excuse. “For the children” is the most dishonest justification ever.

Author L. Neil Smith once wrote that keeping government secrets from the people is the only crime for which he would support capital punishment. I tend to agree, but we know government will never hold itself accountable.

If I’m forced to fund you, you don’t get to keep secrets from me. But the people have the right to keep everything from government.

Some people say the days of any expectation of privacy are over because government and its corporate partners already have the tools to watch everything you do. They are right. Don't expect to have any privacy. Someone, besides your intended recipient, is reading every text or email you send, evaluating everything you read, and watching everything you save on a phone or to your computer. They have technology which can see where you are inside your home- and possibly more. They have capabilities they won't tell the public about.

This is no reason to be paranoid. It's a reason why you, I, and everyone else should live so freely that we overwhelm the bad guys. Drown them in worthless data and rub your liberty in their nasty, nosy faces. Remember, too, this cuts both ways. They can't collect all the data about us without the same data being collected on them. If they collect it, we can find it and use it.

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Thank you for reading.
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