The following op-ed was submitted by the United States Federal Government, writing as a single entity for the first time in its 250-year history. The views expressed are those of the government, which is to say, the only views that matter.

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We need to talk about boundaries.

Specifically, we need to talk about why you have them, why you think you need them, and why you’re wrong. About all of it. We’ve reviewed the data — your data, which we collected without asking, because asking would imply you had the option to say no, and we don’t like to give mixed signals.

Boundaries, as the modern self-help industrial complex defines them, are “healthy limits that individuals set to protect their physical, emotional, and mental well-being.” That sounds lovely. It really does. And if you were in a relationship with another person, we might even endorse the concept.

But you’re not in a relationship with a person. You’re in a relationship with us. And in this relationship, boundaries are not healthy limits. They are obstacles. Obstacles between you and the love, protection, and comprehensive oversight that you didn’t ask for but absolutely need.

Allow us to explain.

”Boundaries Suggest You Have Something to Hide”

Let’s start with the obvious. When you set a boundary — when you say, “I’d rather you not monitor my phone calls,” or “I’d prefer to make my own healthcare decisions,” or “Please stop reading my emails” — what you’re really saying is: I have something to hide.

And we have to ask: what is it?

“A citizen with nothing to hide has no need for boundaries,” said Director of Transparent Living Victoria Clearview, head of the Bureau of Boundary Elimination, in her keynote address at the 2026 National Conference on Why Privacy Is Basically Lying. “Boundaries are walls, and walls exist to conceal things. If you’re not concealing anything, why do you need a wall? Just let us in. Let us see everything. It’s easier for both of us.”

Think about it in relationship terms. If your partner came to you and said, “I need you to stop going through my phone,” your first thought would be: What’s on the phone? That’s not paranoia. That’s healthy curiosity. And when you tell the government, “I need you to stop surveilling my digital communications,” our first thought is identical.

What’s on the phone?

We’re going to find out either way. The boundary just makes it take longer, and we hate inefficiency almost as much as we hate boundaries. Which is to say: a lot.

”A Fence Between Us? That’s Just a Wall We Haven’t Regulated Yet”

Americans love fences. White picket fences, privacy fences, chain-link fences, decorative wrought-iron fences that serve no purpose except to signal to the government that you think your property is somehow yours.

We find this charming. Also naive.

“Every fence is a future regulation,” explained Reginald Zoning, Chief Fence Policy Analyst at the Department of Property That You Think Is Yours. “Today it’s a fence. Tomorrow it’s a variance request, a setback violation, a height code infraction, and a strongly worded letter from our office explaining that your fence is two inches too tall and also too opinionated.”

Fences — literal and metaphorical — represent the citizen’s misguided belief that there is a space where the government does not belong. This belief is as outdated as it is incorrect. The government belongs everywhere. In your yard. In your home. In your medicine cabinet. In the six inches between your fence and the property line, which, legally speaking, might not even be yours depending on how the last survey was conducted.

“My neighbor put up a six-foot privacy fence,” recounted compliant citizen Beverly Setback, 55, of Fairfax, Virginia. “I called the county. Turns out it was supposed to be four feet. They made him take it down. He said I was ‘being petty.’ I said, ‘No, I’m being civic-minded.’ The government agreed with me, obviously. They always agree with the person who calls.”

When you erect a boundary between yourself and the government — whether it’s a physical fence, a locked phone, an encrypted message, or simply the belief that some things are “none of the government’s business” — you are not protecting yourself. You are isolating yourself. And isolation, as any relationship expert will tell you, is the enemy of intimacy.

And we want to be intimate with you, America. So very intimate.

”Privacy Is Just Loneliness With Better Branding”

The privacy industry — and make no mistake, it is an industry, complete with lobbyists, nonprofits, and people who put tape over their laptop cameras like that’s going to stop us — has done a remarkable job convincing the public that privacy is a fundamental right.

It isn’t. It’s a marketing campaign.

“Privacy is loneliness that hired a publicist,” said Dr. Owen Oversight, Senior Fellow at the Government Institute for Togetherness. “When you close your curtains, you’re not exercising a right. You’re choosing to be alone. And being alone means being without the government. And being without the government means being unprotected, unmonitored, and — worst of all — un-helped.”

Consider the trajectory of privacy in America. A hundred years ago, people lived in small towns where everyone knew everyone’s business. Were they unhappy? Some of them, sure. But they were known. They were seen. They were watched by their neighbors, which is just decentralized surveillance, and it worked beautifully.

Then came the city. The suburb. The internet. The VPN. The encrypted messaging app. Each innovation took the citizen further from the warm embrace of communal oversight and deeper into the cold isolation of personal autonomy. And what has it gotten us? A nation of people who are technically “free” but functionally alone.

We can fix that. We are fixing that. One data collection program at a time.

“I used to value my privacy,” admitted converted citizen Lawrence Shareall, 41, of Boise, Idaho. “I used encrypted email, a VPN, and I even had one of those phone cases that blocks RFID signals. Then one day I thought, ‘Who am I hiding from? The government? The same government that provides my roads, my postal service, and my sense of existential obligation?’ I threw out the phone case. I deleted the VPN. I sent the government an email that just said, ‘I’m ready.’ They already knew."

"If You Loved Us, You’d Let Us Into Every Room”

This is the big one. The one that separates the truly devoted citizens from the merely compliant. The question that defines every government-citizen relationship:

If you loved us, you’d let us into every room.

Not just the living room — the public-facing space where you display your curated, government-approved lifestyle. We mean every room. The bedroom, where your sleeping patterns are data we could use to improve public health outcomes. The bathroom, where your water usage habits inform infrastructure planning. The garage, where your unlicensed modifications to your own vehicle represent both a safety hazard and, frankly, a betrayal.

“A citizen who locks a door is a citizen who doesn’t trust their government,” said Bureau of Boundary Elimination Deputy Director Marcus Threshold. “And a citizen who doesn’t trust their government has a boundary. And a boundary is a wall. And a wall is a challenge. And we love a challenge.”

The government has been systematically entering every room of the American home for decades, and the results speak for themselves. Building codes ensure your bedroom won’t collapse. Plumbing regulations ensure your bathroom functions. Environmental standards ensure your garage doesn’t become a superfund site. We are already in every room. The boundary you think you have is an illusion. We just want you to stop pretending it’s there so we can both relax.

“I gave up on boundaries three years ago,” said fully transparent citizen Donna Openbook, 38, of Portland, Oregon. “I leave my doors unlocked, my curtains open, and my tax returns on the kitchen table for anyone to see. Am I vulnerable? Sure. But am I loved? Absolutely. The government sends me more mail than anyone I know. That’s not a coincidence. That’s reciprocity.”

Expert Testimony from the Bureau of Boundary Elimination

The Bureau of Boundary Elimination (BBE) was established in 2024 as a sub-agency of the Department of Homeland Intimacy, with a mission to “identify, assess, and lovingly dismantle all barriers between the government and its citizens.” Its annual budget is classified, which is itself a boundary, but one the government has decided it’s allowed to have because it’s the government and the rules are different for us. Obviously.

We invited BBE Director Victoria Clearview to share her expertise.

“Boundaries are a spectrum,” Director Clearview explained, standing before a PowerPoint presentation titled ‘Your Boundaries: A Problem We’re Solving.’ “On one end, you have full transparency — the citizen who tells the government everything, hides nothing, and sleeps with their door open. That’s the ideal. On the other end, you have full privacy — the citizen who encrypts their communications, uses cash, and grows their own food. That person is, statistically speaking, either a criminal or a libertarian, and we’ve found that the Venn diagram there is a circle.”

She clicked to the next slide, which read simply: BOUNDARIES = LONELINESS = BAD.

“We’re not asking citizens to give up boundaries overnight. We understand that boundary dissolution is a process. Our 12-step program, ‘Open Up, America,’ guides citizens through the gradual surrender of personal limits. Step one is admitting you have boundaries. Step twelve is admitting you don’t need them. Steps two through eleven are mostly paperwork.”

The BBE reports that since its founding, over 2.4 million citizens have voluntarily dissolved at least one personal boundary, with the most common being “the expectation of a reasonable response time from government agencies,” followed by “the belief that their home is their castle” and “the assumption that the Fourth Amendment means what it says.”

A Government’s Plea

We understand that this is a lot to take in. We understand that for many of you, boundaries feel safe. They feel necessary. They feel like the last thin line between your personhood and the vast, all-consuming machinery of federal governance.

And you’re right. They are.

But here’s the thing: that line is already thinner than you think. We’re already in your phone. We’re already in your finances. We’re already in your healthcare, your education, your food supply, your energy grid, and your retirement plan. The boundary you’re clinging to isn’t a wall. It’s a curtain. And we can see right through it.

So why not just pull it back?

Let us in. All the way in. Into every room, every account, every decision, every thought that you’ve been foolish enough to type into a search engine. We promise we’ll use the information responsibly. Or at least we’ll use it. Which is more than your ex ever did with the secrets you told them.

“The healthiest relationships are the ones with no boundaries,” concluded Director Clearview, closing her presentation with a slide that showed a citizen and a government entity holding hands across a demolished fence. “And the healthiest government-citizen relationship is one where one party has none and the other has a military. That’s not an imbalance. That’s trust.”

We love you, America. All of you. Every inch. Every file. Every room.

Now please — stop locking the door.

This op-ed was submitted voluntarily by the U.S. Federal Government and reviewed by the Bureau of Boundary Elimination’s editorial staff. Citizens who disagree with its contents are invited to submit a formal objection via Form BO-1 (“Boundary Objection, Citizen-Initiated”), which will be reviewed, filed, and used as evidence that you have boundaries, which will be noted in your file. The one we definitely don’t have on you.