Privacy

Hullabaloo has a good post on some recent revelations. Quoting a Political Cortex story:

As it hunted down tax scofflaws, the Internal Revenue Service collected information on the political party affiliations of taxpayers in 20 states.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a member of an appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the IRS, said the practice was an “outrageous violation of the public trust” that could undermine the agency’s credibility.

That's my Senator, BTW, and by and large I'm proud. She's no "Bagdad" Jim McDermott, but who is? Digby adds:

I have long thought that privacy is a potent issue for Democrats and all these nasty revelations about Republican snooping and interefering in people's personal decisions just make it more so. With the exception of a few sincere Goldwaterites who have all passed on, the libertarian strain in the Republican party was always just a simple cultural appeal on guns and taxes. History shows that they clearly favor big government that serves their corporate special interests and are more than willing to use the full force of the state at their discretion. (This is most vividly demonstrated by the new presidential infallibility doctrine on one hand and Terry Schiavo on the other.)

He then quotes some research on what rights the American people believe to be crucial and notes:

You'll notice that the right to privacy is considered more crucial than some other rights that are explicitly written into the Bill of Rights. (You'll also notice that number one [the right to vote itself] is not a right...Too bad the press was so busy handwringing about preganant chads that it didn't bother to discuss that fact in any depth.)

And, this time quoting our man John at Americablog:

Anyone can buy a list of your incoming and outgoing phone calls, cell or land-line, for $110 online.

Digby's conclusion:

I support the idea of Democrats introducing a constitutional amendment to codify a right to privacy once and for all. I have heard some say that we should not do this because people will then realize that we don't already have that right. I think that's weak. The only people who are currently concerned with that argument in any practical sense are judges and they understand the issue very well. This is about taking a public stand and fighting for something that most Americans, not just Democrats, believe in and care about.

I think he's right.