Recalling Dad's Encounter With Intensive Government Monitoring

At age 55 and dull, part of me buys the case that it's better to lose a little bit of privacy for a whole lot of security.

So the government wants to monitor me? Okay. I have nothing to hide and you, poor investigator, run the risk of dying of boredom.

But that's today when I have nothing to hide and little to fear.

In the tumultuous 1950s and 1960s, the story might have been different, something my dad reminded me of as he lay dying of cancer in the summer of 1993.