Together at last …

… Edward Snowden and Catholic Social Teaching | Catholic Moral Theology Edward Snowden and Catholic Social Teaching |.

While there may be legitimate disagreement about where we should draw the line that determines when the basic conditions required for private property and civil society have been violated, surely there is no doubt that such a line should be drawn. And if one should respond that thus far the massive and systematic collection of personal data does not yet cross that line, one should at least ask the question that so disquieted Edward Snowden: is the infrastructure in place for the government to cross that line at a moment’s notice? When we are dealing with huge and powerful social structures like the US security apparatus, is there a meaningful moral difference between thecapacity to dissolve the sphere of privacy that makes civil society possible and the actual dissolution of that sphere?