As usual, this is what it's all about, isn't it? Academics with guns.

You do realize that once you've established the premise that it's acceptable to have a centralized authority controlling your life for the "greater good," that privacy is no more of a inviolate personal right than any of the other personal issues?

Is having my thermostat controlled by the government a violation of my "privacy?" Deciding what I eat, drink, wear, or anything else? Like I pointed out elsewhere, where are the "privacy nuts" when I have to tell, under pain of arrest, the IRS every damn thing about my economic life each year?

If someone can make the case that lives are saved by listening to your phone calls, why is that any different than making the case you can save lives by outlawing meat? What "ego trip" are you on that you think your phone conversations are any more special than your dietary preferences?