Shorter NSA: "Warrant? I Don't Have to Show You Any Stinking Warrants!"

The NSA has admitted to Congress that they can and do listen in on domestic telephone calls without a warrant. All it takes, as Snowden said, is the decision of some GS-3 analyst that they want to listen to the call.

Now, maybe this is a Godwin's Law violation, but bear with me:

One of the rights we had as Americans was to be left alone. The Founders were serious about that, which is why the Constitution likely would have not been ratified without a commitment to immediately pass and ratify the Bill of Rights. Over the last 34 years, that right has been chipped away, ever since the Supreme Court ruled that who you call and who calls you is not your information, but the information of the phone company. They took that ruling and expanded it to rule that your mobile phone's location is not private as it is "pinging" the cell towers and thereby sending its (and your) location to the phone company.

Without a warrant, the government can find out where you are, who you call and who calls you, who you email and who emails you, what websites you visit, what you buy on your credit and debit cards, and who you write checks to. If you have EZ-Pass, they know where you drive. They don't have to read your emails and listen into your calls to know everything they about you, but being able to do so is a lagniappe.

What do we get when we raise the right to be left alone? We get the rationale used by every police state: "You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide." But doesn't everyone have something they don't want broadcast around?

Do you mind the government knowing what books you've been reading? Unless you live in a good-sized area, chances are that the neighborhood bookstores are all gone. Which means that you're buying books over the Internet or borrowing them from your library, all of which means that the government can find out what you read, what magazines you subscribe to. Maybe you like to catch up with your favorite shows using the cable company's "on demand" feature-- which means you told the cable company what you like to watch. Do you use an "affinity" card in the grocery store? Did you sign up for the rewards points at your local movie house?

All of that information is accessible to the government, just about any level of government, without a warrant. A subpoena, which isn't issued by a judge, or a letter is all it takes.

One of the guiding principles of political power is that power, even if created for good reasons, will be abused. Maybe your local sheriff, an elected official, has no problems with doing opposition research for his friends. Maybe a high-level bureaucrat wants some information for his files for a little subtle blackmail.

Can you imagine what thugs like J. Edgar Hoover or Richard Nixon would have been able to do today? What information they could acquire on people, now, without having to do any black-bag searches?

Don't count on any help from the politicians. The Democrats are scared of looking weak on security and the Republicans, most of them, drool over this level of intrusiveness.

You need to start fighting back. You need to make it less easy for them.

• Start paying cash, again, for incidentals.  (If you buy liquor or smokes with a credit or debit card, you're a serious moron.)
• Turn off your cell phone and go for a drive.
• Toss the EZ-Pass into a foil bag.
• Use the Tor browser (from a USB drive) from time to time.
• You and your friends start encrypting your emails.
• Write real letters.  Sure, they can intercept those, but they have to physically do it.  Some NSA or FBI cubicle-drone can't click with a mouse and  read them.

You can have some privacy, even in this connected age.  But you're going to have to work for it.