Saving privacy

You want to protect your privacy? Simple. Just change the definition of privacy.

As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguards people's private communications and financial information.

So “privacy” no longer means that your most secret, intimate words and actions are unknown to others; it means that your benevolent corporate government overseers will hang on to this information about you for safe keeping and promise that all reasonable efforts will be made to ensure that nobody else can use it against you.