Private

It has taken me a long time, but I've finally figured out the true meaning of the right to privacy. Here's a hint: it's private. Members only!

Yes, Virginia, there really is a right to privacy. But there's a catch. Not everyone has it. If everyone had a right to privacy, it wouldn't be very private now, would it? It would be public, and what good is a right to privacy that's public? That would make no sense at all in our private enterprise system.

Therefore the Founders and the Framers, in their wisdom, saw the need for the right to privacy to be, yes, privately held, like a family business or a corporation that is not, repeat not, publicly traded. Again, if something as valuable as privacy were to be made available to everyone, it would never be the same, and in fact it wouldn't be what it is, which is private.

But I've already said too much. I mean publicly. But this little nugget of information explains a lot.

For example, it explains why a chief executive can (privately) agree with telecommunications companies to indiscriminately tap the phones of (private) individuals, using so-called data mining to listen in on (private) conversations without a court order, without consent, and without probable cause that said (private) individuals have even a remote intention of breaking the law. Which said wiretapping is, that is, breaking the law, except when Congress says, many months or years after the fact, that it's really okay, um, because the chief executive said so.

Ergo, the people with privacy have a right to privacy, but they don't have to tell anybody, because then their privacy would be made public, and that's bad because then it wouldn't be private. And the people without any privacy do not have a right to privacy, but they shouldn't be told that they have no right to privacy, because then their lack of privacy would be public, which would be an breach of the privacy of those who do have a right to privacy, such as the chief executive and certain telecommunications companies and others, who shall go unnamed to protect their privacy, as well as their right to invade other people's privacy, which those other people don't have a right to anyway.

I have it on good authority, because I read it in a book, that public employees have greater privacy rights than private employees. So let me get this straight: if I'm a private individual who works for a private company, my files are not private, but if I'm a public employee, or civil servant, who works for a local, state, or federal agency, then my files are private. Okay, now I get it.

That explains a lot. For example, it explains why Vice Fuhrer Cheney has official meetings to discuss national energy policy with oil company executives in his office in the white house, but he doesn't have to tell the press or anyone else what was said. Sorry, national energy policy is none of the public's business. That was private.