Orson Welles on Privacy (55 Years Ago)

An excellent and prescient view of privacy by the man, Orson Welles. Whole transcript here. If you have heard Welles speak, try to read it with his voice in mind...it's great.
Excerpt:

Think of all of those forms we have to fill out, for example, you know what I mean, by police forms, we get them in hotels, on frontiers, in every country all over the world we’re asked, state your sex, male or female, for example. Well obviously, I’m a male, I’m a man, why should I have to answer that? State your race and religion in block letters; well, now why should I have to confide my religion to the police? Frankly, I don’t think anybody’s race is anybody’s business. I’m willing to admit that the policeman has a difficult job, a very hard job, but it’s the essence of our society that the policeman’s job should be hard. He’s there to protect, protect the free citizen, not to chase criminals, that’s an incidental part of his job. The free citizen is always more of a nuisance to the policeman that the criminal. He knows what to do about the criminal...

Especially timely with all the TSA talk going around. Basically, I would have to agree with Welles here. Government should protect the free citizen, not chase the offenders of that freedom. Government knows how to punish the criminal, but it still does not know what to do with the free man.