Donald Kerr, deputy director of national intelligence, wants America to give up privacy

Kerr says it's time for people in the U.S. to redefine privacy. As Congress talks new rules for government eavesdropping. A White House intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States change their definition of privacy.
Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information.
The original law required a court order for any surveillance conducted on U.S. soil in order to protect Americans' privacy. The White House argued that the law was obstructing intelligence gathering because, as technology has changed, a growing amount of foreign communications passes through U.S.-based channels.
Congress hastily changed the 1978 law last year to allow the government to eavesdrop inside the United States without court permission, so long as one end of the conversation was reasonably believed to be located outside the U.S.
Some lawmakers, including members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, appear reluctant to grant immunity. Suits might be the only way to determine how far the government has delved into American's privacy without court permission.
Perhaps one of the most important issues in the new law is whether to shield telecommunications companies from civil lawsuits for allegedly giving the government access to people's private e-mails and phone calls without a FISA court order between 2001 and 2007.
A retired AT&T technician by the name of Mark Klein, claims he helped connect a device in 2003 that he says diverted and copied onto a government supercomputer every call, e-mail, and Internet site access on all AT&T lines.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed the class-action suit, claims there are as many as 20 such sites in the U.S.
"There is something fundamentally different from the government having information about you than private parties," he said. "We shouldn't have to give people the choice between taking advantage of modern communication tools and sacrificing their privacy."
"It's just another 'trust us, we're the government,"' he said.
A commend definition of privacy is that which any president, or a member of his administration, or any government employee, or any backyard neighbor, should keep his prying eyes, nose, or ears out of.

According to Adele, of Toledo, Ohio said, “It is not privacy we need to redefine; it's the administration which has taken it from us.

We have an amazing source for redefinition; it's called impeachment. That's what it's time for! Says, Soni, Salem, Oregon

Sandra, of Whittier, California stated “We shouldn't redefine any more of our rights and liberties. Wake up, America, we are losing our country. The next right they will redefine is gun rights. We will not have any! -
The White House has promised to veto any bill that does not grant immunity from suits such as this one.
Congressional leaders claim they hope to complete a bill by Thanksgiving. It will replace the FISA update enacted in August that privacy groups and civil libertarians say allows the government to read Americans' e-mails and listen to their phone calls without court oversight.
Its reported that there was a high level meeting in the White House where the group received a briefing on the program's operations.
The NSA program reportedly monitors terror suspects' communications in the United States so long as one end of those conversations is conducted overseas.
The Bush administration continues to argued that the resolution authorizing military action after the 9/11 attacks and the president's authority as commander in chief give him power to order intelligence agencies to monitor calls between people in the United States and terrorism suspects overseas without a court order, as the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act requires.
Still the administration officials assert the program is necessary to battle terrorists and that its disclosure in December damaged national security.
Critics have claimed the program is illegal because no warrants are requested for the eavesdropping and it therefore infringe on Americans' civil liberties