Invasion of Privacy

Bruce Schneier has a column on the threats to privacy that the advance of computer technology is generating. The march of technology, he argues, "has resulted in the almost constant surveillance of everyone, with profound implications for our society and our freedoms." Therefore, he continues, we need laws to protect our privacy as strong as those of the Europeans. Can he be right? European law, particularly as issued by Brussels, has tended to produce economic stagnation (examine the economic growth rates of European countries compared to those of the United States). And few of us feel an immediate threat of persecution by our government or private enterprise. Yet threats exist, as Schneier points out, and we would be foolish not to consider them.

There are two drivers that are increasing the threats to our privacy. One, of course, represented by the spat over surveillance by the NSA, is security. The other is convenience. Most of us are willing to give up a part of our privacy if we can increase either one of these. The question is how much privacy are we willing we give up?

This problem is that this will change; we will give it up by degrees and find that the next bit is not so precious after all. One day, however, we'll find that we miss it. People are like this. You have only to look at what was shocking in popular entertainment just twenty years ago and what is perfectly acceptable now. Martin Niemöller found the same phenomenon in a different context:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Privacy seems destined to follow a similar path. Who would not allow our security agencies to listen in on people who seem to be allied to Al Qaeda? We value our own privacy, not theirs. And who does not give the information, hardly precious, that Amazon, Yahoo, Google, or a credit card company requests in exchange for easy access to the delights they dangle before us?

But once it's gone, how do we get it back? And when organizations or groups, governmental or private, use it to pursue interests contraposed to ours, will there be anyone left to speak for us?

Privacy is maintained through both custom and law. Would that custom alone would suffice. But it will not, or so it appears. We must, alas, rely on law instead to protect us. If we cannot, then we may find that a dystopia has become our own brave new world.