On a controversy in place since 9/11, where surveillance efforts picked up Americans contacting suspicious overseas parties. Folks have gone back and forth on it - some think since nobody’s listening to conversations, maybe it’s ok to simply track parties to calls.

Rather than just politicizing the issue, we can recognize it as a product of competing concerns. Preventing future terror attacks, or other crimes, vs privacy. Similar questions cropped up years ago in the terrorist shooting in SoCal, where Apple was hesitant to help the feds hack the perp’s phone.

When we were scared shitless after 9/11, expecting terror attacks every other week, the country leaned towards safety over privacy. These days, maybe the pendulum’s swung back. We’re only going to get easier to track. Self driving cars, probably all connected up to central hubs to control traffic flow, will be really easy to track. Think about AI getting involved in that. If we decide to allow it. As a country, we have a lot of decisions to make on the balance here as tech continues to advance.