The recently revealed NSA datamining project has essentially created a fishing pond of data that can be queried using different rules and assumptions. This eliminates the concept of probable cause and the checks and balances in place to protect our privacy.

If you think that it doesn't matter because you're not doing anything illegal, consider the movie Six Degrees of Separation. Even if we could each trace a common contact back to Kevin Bacon, does that mean that we are each likely to have even spoken with him, ourselves?

John Markoff of the New York Times explained how link analysis could lead to you in a May 13 article, Questions Raised for Phone Giants in Spy Data Furor:

"The database reportedly assembled by the security agency from calling records has dozens of fields of information, including called and calling numbers and the duration of calls, but nothing related to the substance of the calls. But it could permit what intelligence analysts and commercial data miners refer to as "link analysis," a statistical technique for investigators to identify calling patterns in a seemingly impenetrable mountain of digital data."

The way that datamining works, your number could end up on a suspect list because someone called your number who had also called a suspect, even if any of the calls were a wrong number. Are you confident that every number called by every number you called or were called by would not trigger a match?

Having worked in the direct marketing industry for 20 years, I have no illusions that personal data is not being collected daily. That is why we have legislation requiring companies to provide privacy notices and opt-out procedures should consumers not want companies to share this data with others.

One would expect that those who have opted out of having information shared with others would expect that it not be shared. The article also estimated that phone companies could face billions of dollars in damages from class action lawsuits based in interpretations of statutes and past precedent.

We have a procedure for obtaining legal authorization for searches in this country. No matter which party is in charge, this needs to be respected. How can we claim that we are spreading freedom in the world if we don't respect it at home?