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My dad used to pull over whenever a police officer was following him to let him pass; not because he'd done anything wrong, but because he was sure if the officer followed long enough, he'd find some reason to issue a ticket. Legally obtained search warrents remain the only real check against abuse for probing into a person's private affairs. Minus some compelling reason for the use of force to penetrate and record private information, e.g. a criminal past, or being accused by a reliable witness, such activity is preemptive and therefore an illegitimate use of force. And no, the possibility that the person being targeted might be doing something wrong doesn't justify the intrusion. The presumption of innocence either means something, or it doesn't. So far as Binswanger's comments go, I invite him to Twitter all his private conversations and see where that gets him.

I think Edward Snowden made the point perfectly, in his Guardian interview: your communications and financial activity is all stored and cataloged by the government. No one reads it, of course, because frankly they don't care. But, it is stored and ready to be accessed and used against you if needed. We don't have to become North Korea before someone uses it against you. It could be used against you even today. And not because you've done anything wrong. All is required is the mere appearance of wrongdoing, and your career, business, government or private contract, public image, etc. can be compromised. Not only that, but the people who do it will probably even get away with it, especially if they're high enough on the food chain. There are almost a million people with access to this info. Snowden, a simple employee for a private contractor, had access not only to the data, but even the court orders authorizing it. It's a massive bureaucracy, and, as we've seen many times in the past few years, it's pretty much impossible to hold wrongdoers accountable within it. I'm not the "oh lord Jesus, 1984 is here" type, but as someone with a. some controversial political and personal views and habits and b. with ambition to make something of myself, the fact that most things I say and do have been logged and are available for query, worries me. Not because I fear a coming dictatorship, it worries me even if things don't change much.