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From: njacobs@nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov (Nick Jacobs)
Newsgroups: alt.privacy,comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: The end of privacy... and so what comes next?
Summary: Why we need it
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Date: 11 Apr 91 13:18:44 GMT
References: <63587@bbn.BBN.COM>
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In article <63587@bbn.BBN.COM>, cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) writes...
   [preamble omitted] 
>Well, I've become real pessimistic of late.  Let me uplevel the
>question.  Discussing 'privacy' instead of the specific assault is
>already one level up --- I'd like to move another level up and ask
>about privacy, itself.  CAN one make a case that privacy is
>protectable, or worthwhile, or even means anything?
> 
>Here are three conundrums that seem to do a pretty good job of
>skewering the case for privacy, (and the more I think about them the
>more despondent I get):
> 
>  1) privacy is just a cloak for illegal activity  [i.e., trading
>	privacy for security is a win]

    [other points omitted]
>around the general topic of privacy, I've _never_ found a persuasive
>argument to counter this.  Why shouldn't police be allowed to frisk
>people at random on the street?  or search cars [or even homes] on a
>hunch, or less?  If you don't do drugs, why do you bitch so much about
>drug testing?  What do you have to hide, anyway?  The debate always
>ends up with the anti-privacy folks having specific, concrete,
>immediate, seductive _advantages_ of foregoing a bit of privacy, while
>the pro-privacy folk end up making vague, theoretical, philosophical,
>"but what if" arguments against.  

For me, the question is mainly one of individual freedom from the
power of the government. Who decides what is "illegal"? The
government decides. Yes, in some states, homosexuals need a right
to privacy as a "cloak for illegal activity" - for example.

Our real difficulty is simply that for much of the period since the
founding of the United States, Americans have not suffered a
really repressive government. The founding fathers did an
outstanding job on the Constitution; Congress and sundry
Administrations have been steadily chipping away at it for two
hundred years, and it's only in fairly recent times that they
have made much "progress", to our cost. Lacking the experience
of very repressive government, many Americans are slow to see
the dangers of increasing the government's information resources.
As you point out, it's always possible to point to benefits
of letting Big Brother look after us more efficiently. And as
you did not point out, the most influential, persuasive people
in the world (the politicians - including the media) have a
strong vested interest in arguing that case, in order to increase
their own power.

Many people think that the danger is exaggerated, that we're so
very far from states like Stalin's Soviet Union or George
Orwell's world that there is no need to worry. The problem is
twofold. First, a government tends to increase its power
exponentially; the more powerful it gets, the more capable
it becomes of increasing its power further. As a familiar
example, look at US history. The increase in the power of
the Federal Government between, say, 1920 and now (~ 70 years)
is larger than the increase in its power between its founding
and 1920 (~ 150 years).
Second, technology has given government the means to interfere
in our lives more easily than ever before. Of course Orwell
already saw this trend.

And in any case, I believe that we already have oppressive
government. But that's a subject in itself and off-topic.
>  /Bernie\

Nick