Quote: “The government is saying, ‘Keep everything about everyone and we’ll sort it out later.’” Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, in the L.A. Times.
Figure of Speech: epiphonema (e-pi-pho-NE-ma), the pithy summary.
The feds now want Web companies and telecoms to keep records on all our emails, chats, clicks — and blogs, for crying out loud. Privacy advocate Rotenberg uses an epiphonema to sum up the government’s argument in a memorable way.
While the epiphonema usually applies to summary of your own argument, you can use it to redefine your opponent’s point. We doubt that the feds would sum up their request in quite the same words Rotenberg used. So one can bet his emails are monitored.
Snappy Answer: “The government plans to sort it out? Then our privacy is safe.”