Holly,

Just do me a favor and tell that "big brother" bull to the families of those people that died at Chatsworth? I'm sure that they'll be real amused by it. And, what Airline are you flying? You've never heard of a medical peer review, either, have you?

Black boxes and fail safe technologies are increasingly the standard, in both of these professions, because of the need for safety, and the advances in our technology to help us achieve greater safety. Like railroaders, most pilots and MD's are good committed professionals, too. There's a small percentage, at times, that have problems, or just being human, are prone to mistakes. The technologies we have can help prevent those errors. I guess to some minds that is "big brother".

The natural extension of some of these interesting responses is that I guess we should let people choose not to stop at stop signs? You know that most pernicious form of "social engineering"? Because it infringes on our "freedom" and it is "big brother" to put an officer out on traffic detail to "spy" on them doing it? Worse still to do it with a camera? And, we shouldn't require brake lights on cars? We shouldn't allow radar to enforce speed laws in school zones? Maybe we shouldn't use any technologies to infringe on anyones "right" to act irreponsibly and harm, injure, or kill others?

Wow, simply amazing thinking....... No wonder this country is in the mess it is in. Everybody wants "freedom", but a apparently a lot of people don't want to be held accountable for any of their responsibilities?