Jon Sreekanth,

Your assumption is both dangerous and telling:
"This is a far cry from saying that my interests have been damaged by a computer search (aka data mining) where any personal info is stripped out unless there is a pattern."

How do you know if this is the way (and the only way) that your data is being perused? What's next, our medical information, our spouse's medical info, our children's info? Henry Ford did this kind of thing with his employees in the 1930's. Of course, Henry tried to hide the fact that he was searching out the "best" employees; but if you happened to drink more than Henry thought "good", or didn't go to church as much as Henry thought you should, or your wife wasn't as "stable" as Henry deemed acceptable, or even if you went to the "wrong" church (yes, especially a Synagogue) you might find yourself no longer promoted, or even suddenly without a job.

Henry's megalomanical snooping points out your second dangerous assumption: that the "data mined" information is only used by and for the reasons the administration gives. The last bastion of defense for the invasion of privacy always seems to come down to the silly thought that "If you don't have anything to hide...", but no one ever answers the question: Hide from whom, exactly?

What do you expect the left-wing, terrorist sympathizing, Al Queda WaPoo to do about this? Put forth left-wing, terrorist sympathizing, Al Queda loving "journalists" who are as anti-American as insurgents in Iraq to tell us how great the NY Crimes and WaPoo are -- censorship of what most Americans feel. Please, get the terrorists, and then lock up the lying journalists who vow to protect only Valerie Plame but will tell all other security secrets to help the terrorist kill Americans. Don't bother us when you continue to lay off employees because AMericans would rather stick a fork in their eyes than pay to subsidize terrorist sympathizers in the liberal media. SHAME ON YOU

"cherished right to informational self-determination" : this is a fictitious "right". Most rights that we actually cherish are derived from thousands of years of human experience, are common across multiple cultures, and probably have roots in our biological makeup. For example, the right to be secure in our homes, or to express ourselves, etc. On this particular subject of financial records, most people would say, yes, I have a reasonable expectation of privacy, that my neighbors, friends, co-workers, should not know my salary or my assets. This is a far cry from saying that my interests have been damaged by a computer search (aka data mining) where any personal info is stripped out unless there is a pattern. If it feels creepy to have someone going through "your financial records", well, the IRS does that every year, year after year.