I actually think this is a real cause for concern, especially combined with the large amount of information about our personal preferences and habits that are being gathered from our activities on the internet for marketing purposes and that could also be demanded by government agencies.

Neither freedom or democracy are possible without a significant guarantee of personal privacy. Constitutional guarantees of privacy were as much safe-guarded by the labor intensiveness of gathering private information about private individuals in the pre-internet age. These days, one does not have to be a "person of interest" to government for the government to still have the capacity to easily garner significant information about us. I think about that more and more as I browse on-line and watch ads pop up on Mudcat and other sites clearly related to data collected about sites I have visited or topics I have searched. I think about that when the grocery receipt at the stores where I have "rewards" cards that give me "discounts" are printed on the back with coupons that reflect the store's tracking of my shopping habits.

Relatively benign now? Yes. Will it be for future generations?

Big Brother is a reality in many totalitarian countries. It is foolish to think Big Brother is not a very real possibility, or even a probability in current democracies.

J. Edgar Hoover and Joe McCarthy would have loved the internet and cell phone towers.

Me paranoid?

Maybe.

But I don't think so.