"Privacy schmrivacy?"

In response to public outrage spurred by the revelation that the FBI compiled files on Vietnam War protestors, civil rights activists, celebrities, and thousands of other citizens seemingly selected at random, Congress passed the Privacy Act of 1974. The purpose of the Privacy Act was "to promote governmental respect for the privacy of citizens by requiring all departments and agencies of the executive branch ... to observe certain constitutional rules in the computerization, collection, management, use, and disclosure of personal information about individuals." Specifically, the act was "designed to prevent the kind of illegal, unwise, overboard, investigation and record surveillance of law-abiding citizens [by] over-zealous investigators and [curious] government administrators."