Yesterday I stumbled on this quotation from Benjamin Franklin: They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Wondering what the context of the statement was, I ran a Google search which resulted in 40,500 hits. I then ran one on "Historical Review of Pennsylvania" which Ben Franklin wrote and in which he used the quotation as a motto. It appears from Bartleby.com that the line was used widely prior to Franklin's book, but I couldn't find anywhere what he meant by "essential liberty". The statement is used today primarily in connection with gun rights and anti-Patriot Act sites, and, while it has great appeal, it makes me wonder what Ben Franklin would say about our current situation. I have never considered anonymity to be an essential right. If it were, we wouldn't have to carry drivers licenses or other ID. Where the opposition to a national ID card comes from, or the use of surveillance cameras in public places came from, I can only guess. It seems to be rooted in the counterculture of the 1960s and '70s as now enshrined by the ACLU, 1984 by George Orwell, libertarians and a lot of conspiracy groups at both ends of the spectrum.

It seems to me that it is a duty of citizenship to assist law enforcement in its legitimate functioning, such as finding terrorists, but society seems to have bought into the idea that the FBI is more of an enemy than Al Qaeda. Why is it so threatening to require that we give proof that we are who we say we are? I believe that we are entitled to privacy, but in an age where so many Americans are practically exhibitionists, I have a hard time seeing how denying our identities to law enforcement is protected.