Well…for quite a while now, I have been concerned by the daily erosion of the protections of the fourth amendment both by the courts and by the legislature of the federal government. I don’t understand it, either…when there is so much outcry about any infringement of the 2nd amendment and the rabid howls from the right when even sensible laws controlling guns are proposed, and yet with the revelations that the NSA has been infringing on the 4th on a daily basis…only a few repubs have come forward to oppose this big brother dragnet. The most egregious justification for it is the general one of “safety” and that the government is “protecting” us from some amorphous threat that is out there but they won’t tell us what the threat is or what they are doing to protect us…this creates the next question which is why should we believe agencies that lie on a daily basis?”. This boils down to one quote that I use quite often that distills the balance between risk and freedom: “..those who give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety…” Ben Franklin…geez…