BCT Editorial – 2/10/09

This page was last updated on February 12, 2009.

Little privacy; Editorial; Beaver County Times; February 10, 2009.

The editorial subtitle is “Big Brother isn’t the only one watching us today.”

As I’ve written before about the Times alleged concern with privacy, this concern appears to be selective.

I could be mistaken, but I don’t recall any editorials “about government sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong” regarding the financial full body cavity search we go through every year when we must detail every aspect of our finances for multiple levels of government (income taxes, property taxes, wage taxes, etc.) or the government access to our healthcare records required by government healthcare programs like Medicare.

The editorial says “The importance of this right [privacy] has continued until today, which is why there was so much concern over the Bush administration’s misplaced willingness to abridge privacy in its efforts to counter terrorism.” A typical editorial on this topic was “Legal technicality.”

I have two points about this last excerpt. First, it says, “there was so much concern.” Does this mean that despite no change in the law, the Times no longer has “concern” now that Mr. Obama is President? Second, if the privacy allegations about Bush administration policies/procedures are truly as bad as Times editorials told us for the last several years, why isn’t the Times demanding President Obama issue an executive order rolling back all of the alleged privacy missteps of the Bush administration?