> “The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry,” Mr. Bloomberg said during a press conference in Midtown. “But we live in a complex word where you’re going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change.”

Poe's law for politics.

I can't conceive of a way that 'reinterpreting' the constitution is going to give us more freedom. If he and his police force can't do their job of protecting the public, maybe they need to rethink their tactics instead of trying to force us to give up our rights to make their job easier. Is it even about making their jobs easier, though?

He's referring to freedoms to choose Verizon, Sprint or AT&T; to go with iPhone, Android, or even Windows Phone (for those odd fanatics); to pick a foreign or domestic hybrid vehicle; to choose Democans or Republicrats; and maybe the freedom to move to a new school district to get a better education (until the Department of Education takes them all over anyway).

> He has to be aware of what he's saying. Right?

Probably.

Just because this sentiment has become a self-parody in many circles, it does not mean that Bloomberg doesn't earnestly believe it.

And it doesn't mean that it is invalid. The ideological basis for a lot of Islamist terrorism is Qutbism which is quite regressive:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qutbism#Qutbism_and_non-Muslims