Do you remember the period after 9/11 when we were learning with alarm that the Department of Homeland Security wanted to put surveillance cameras on our street corners? Although some people saw the wisdom of that decision, others were apprehensive about cameras appearing everywhere we went. Wouldn’t those cameras be an invasion of privacy? Were they really necessary to identify terrorists? Or could they be used for other insidious purposes?

Over time, however, we seem to have become less concerned about those cameras. We’ve learned that criminals can be identified, attacks on people can be recorded and the bad guys will learn that it’s more difficult to escape the law. Yet we’re also noticing that with the most recent actions by the government to threaten our rights and our privacy, we have much more at stake regarding our personal lives than ever before.