Data collection and mining for political purposes.

Here and here are two articles to read in order to begin to understand the significance of data collection by the government and its consequences to citizens.

There appear to be at least two major schools of thoughts on this subject.  The first is the government is essentially benign and although there is some loss of privacy on our part in going along with allowing all this data collection, in the end it is necessary so long as there are evildoers (i.e., Muslim terrorists) who want to take us all out anyway they can.  The second is that privacy is the cornerstone of freedom and that if we compromise on this issue anywhere at any time, we are setting ourselves up for slavery.

It is pretty obvious from the both of these two articles that the Obama campaign and then administration has mastered the data mining technology.  It has been reported that Google employees helped them in this effort.  It is also well chronicled that the Obama administration is willing to go to any lengths to win elections. In short it should come as no surprise that Democrats play WWE style hardball since this approach won elections for FDR and many others in that party over the years.  While Republicans are not saints, they have never been willing to cross legality lines in order to win elections like Democrats.

Since it's obvious by what's going on in Utah, and the IRS scandal that information gathered perhaps legally by the government can and will be used illegally by the government if it is to its advantage and if it can get away with it.  The only answer to this conundrum is to isolate the data collection program, as well as the IRS and any other government agency, from any involvement in the use of the data whatsoever.  Can this be done is the question.