Redefining Privacy
This kind of thinking can do enormous damage to a free society:
As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States change their definition of privacy.
Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people’s private communications and financial information.
[…]
“Our job now is to engage in a productive debate, which focuses on privacy as a component of appropriate levels of security and public safety,” Kerr said. “I think all of us have to really take stock of what we already are willing to give up, in terms of anonymity, but [also] what safeguards we want in place to be sure that giving that doesn’t empty our bank account or do something equally bad elsewhere.”
Anonymity, privacy, and security are intertwined; you can’t just separate them out like that. And privacy isn’t opposed to security; privacy is part of security. And the value of privacy in a free society is enormous.
EDITED TO ADD (11/15): His actual comments are more nuanced. Steve Bellovin has some comments.
Anonymous • November 14, 2007 1:16 PM
…and thus the so-called land-of-the-free takes yet another giant step to becoming the very thing it railed against during the cold war.