"Unfortunately, it's far more difficult to control the data that is transmitted by your smart phone than it is to control the data transmitted by your computer. Smart phones are in constant communication with cell towers, with nearby Wi-Fi points, and the apps may be receiving updates,"

The light touch approach on privacy that the U.S. government has engaged in has enabled American innovators to develop some of the best services we see online today and internationally

"Right now, companies -- some legitimate, some sleazy -- can collect your location data from a smart phone and sell it to ad companies or who knows who else," said Franken. "Some companies have actually rolled out "stalking apps" specifically designed to help abusers stalk their victims."

"Americans understand that we need to give due weight to both privacy and national security. But right now, Americans aren't getting even the most basic information about what's going on with the NSA's surveillance programs, and whether or not their privacy is being violated," Sen. Al Franken, D-Minnesota, told State of the Union.

New technologies and a heightened level of sharing on multiple outlets have led to moral and practical dilemmas that confront consumers, the tech industry, retailers, even the government.

Companies are collecting information about consumers in order to sell ads more effectively.

Many of the people being targeted [for deportation] have for decades lived lawful, safe, and productive lives here.

“And America does nothing to stop the weapons coming here!” Valeria exclaimed to me.

Another thing to consider is that a barrier in the form of a wall is increasingly irrelevant to the drug trade as it is now practiced because most of the drugs smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico no longer arrive on the backs of those who cross illegally.

224 tunnels have been unearthed at the U.S.–Mexico border.

Drug smugglers have been using tunnels to get drugs into the United States ever since Mexico’s most famous drug trafficker, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán of the Sinaloa Cartel, pioneered the method in 1989. And the sophistication of these tunnels has only grown over time.

Trump claimed that the wall would cost only $12 billion, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) internal report in February put the cost at $21.6 billion, but that may be a major underestimate.

To be successful, Medicare for all and related proposals will likelyneed the support of the physician and hospital communities, whichhave yet to broadly back these proposals in part due to the uncer-tainty around prices.

If prices were set at 200% ofMedicare levels, prices for some services would decline but otherswould increase.

While guaranteeing access to necessary care for all pa-tients is an important and laudable outcome, the increased potentialfor overutilization,

Reducing commercial prices to the level of Medicare priceswould, at first glance and without any adjustment, sub-stantially reduce the total cost of health care in the UnitedStates through lower total revenues for physicians andhospitals.

Hospital prices demonstrate a qualitatively similar pat-tern, with commercial prices for hospital inpatient care av-eraging about 200% of Medicare levels and those for hos-pital outpatient services nearly 300% of Medicare.

Commer-cial prices in network ranged from roughly 100% to morethan 300% of Medicare levels,

Would Taxes Go Up Under Single-Payer? The tax burden would be enormous, roughly doubling the current tax obligations for today’s taxpayers. One funding option Sanders proposes is a 7.5 percent payroll tax, plus a 4 percent income tax on all Americans, as well as a wide variety of specialized taxes on investments and taxes targeted to higher-income Americans. (He outlines these tax proposals as options, but they are not included in the latest version of his bill.)

Medicare fails to effectively control waste, fraud, and abuse in the program. This failure of administration results in the staggering loss of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars each and every year. Private-sector health plans, policing their billing, have no comparable record in accumulating such enormous losses.

Mercatus Center’s Charles Blahous estimates a 10-year $32.6 trillion increase in federal spending. Even “doubling all currently projected federal individual and corporate income tax collections would be insufficient to finance the added federal costs of the plan.”

The cost of a single-payer system would depend upon its design, benefit levels, and scope of coverage. In the case of Sanders’ proposal, estimates consistently show that the plan would impose dramatic obligations on the federal taxpayer, and that the proposal would incur substantial annual deficits.

His planwould finance the national insurance program through a combination of payroll and income taxes, and it would replace private and employer-sponsored health insurance and existing government health programs—including Medicare itself.

A “single-payer” health system is a government-controlled health care system. Government is the “single-payer.” In most versions of single-payer, most private health insurance is either outlawed or restricted, and most public health programs are absorbed into the single, national health insurance program.

Medicare: Created in 1965, this federal program provides health insurance for roughly 60 million elderly and disabled Americans. It covers hospitalization, rehabilitation and doctors' visits, but not vision, hearing, dental and long-term care

Since 2008, average family premiums have increased 55%, twice as fast as workers' earnings and three times as fast as inflation, according to Kaiser

. Annual premiums for a family plan cost almost $20,000, on average, last year,with workers contributing about $5,550 and employers paying the rest, according to another Kaiser survey

Three-quarters of the public have favorable views of work-based coverage, according to a new poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Of those with such plans, 86% rate their coverage as either "excellent" or "good."

Nursing home and other institutional services would be covered under Medicaid.

CNN)Health care has emerged as a key fault line for Democrats. All of them want to make changes, but their plans vary widely