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The Erosion of Privacy

-- By ArtCavazosJr - 18 Apr 2010

A few years ago, when confronted with actual evidence that the U.S. government was spying on its citizens, many people didn’t seem to care. In fact, it was quite common to hear people say, “Why should I care? I have nothing to hide.” Others said, “Even if they have embarrassing info about me, it will probably never be seen by human eyes, and if it is, they won’t even know who I am. Why would they care, and why should I?” Those concerned with terrorism, patriotism or security might say, “Plus, our collective interest in (if not right to) national security is far more important than any negligible privacy interest that law-abiding citizens may have. Only criminals and terrorists have anything to fear.” If the government, corporations, or others are collecting data on us, why should we care? Are there good enough reasons, like security or the economy, for them to do so? And if we should care, should we try to stop it?

I took out the phrase "something funny happened" because I think it contradicts your overall argument that it's actually not that funny or ironic that Americans responded to this loss of privacy in such a "nonchalant" way. Maybe you meant to say that the loss of privacy peaked at the moment (moreso than ever before) the evidence surfaced and so it was funny then but now it's common to us. Either way, the way I read your paper suggested that it wasn't necessarily "funny" but rather predictable and an indication of the increasing willingness of Americans to not only be tracked by the government but to submit more and more information about themselves into the public sphere. My point is minor but could save you some words.

Why Should We Care?

Loss of Personal Autonomy

Most people conjure up ideas of George Orwell’s 1984 when they think about government infringements on privacy rights. This is the “big brother” model, whereby our freedoms and autonomy are eroded by a large centralized force. While this may well be a danger, it has lost much of its impact with large subsets of society, particularly the “why should I care?” set. Daniel Solove argues for another analogy, Franz Kafka’s The Trial. When thinking about privacy harm in terms of Orwell (top-down social control and inhibitors), the “I have nothing to hide” camp is probably correct, at least for now, that most law-abiding citizens won’t be immediately and directly affected by this type of law enforcement monitoring. However, when thought of in terms of Kafka (bureaucracy uses people’s data to make important decisions about them, but excludes them from the process), the multitude of even “benign” data available suddenly becomes far more interesting. If this data is being used to analyze trends, and make predictions about behavior, there may be some danger that our autonomy will be greatly eroded by policy decisions utilizing this type of information. This kind of paternalistic control could itself be sinister or benign, but either way, our personal freedoms lose out.

Loss of Security

In addition to monitoring and control problems, there is the so-called “privacy theater” problem. As early as 1997, Dr. Latanya Sweeny, a computer scientist and professor at Carnegie Mellon, showed that seemingly benign data (birth date, zip code, gender, race, marital status, etc.) could be used to re-identify what was previously thought to be anonymous data. The process works on simple theory: “anonymous” data is usually missing so-called personally identifiable information (PII) like names, social security numbers, etc., but if you can find another database with that type of information (say voter registration rolls, which can be purchased in most states for $20 or less) you can cross-reference the two, and by repeating the process you can eventually have a “complete” data set. In practice of course, this can often be a bit more difficult, and for years, legislation and “security experts” assumed that by deleting PII they were denying adversaries the information they needed to complete data sets of, say, medical records, financial statements, email accounts, and the like. Unfortunately, in the modern era, assuming someone can’t find a specific piece of information is a very poor assumption indeed. Privacy theater claims our security measures and legislation focusing on PII for protecting privacy merely let us go through the motions without really protecting anything.

I think this is a really interesting point which ties to your original opening statement - people think they are giving up certain "rights" or privacy in order to achieve the "right" of national security. In fact what's happening is the loss of another, more personal kind of security.

By assembling fragmented data into complete data sets like a jigsaw puzzle, it is possible to create and maintain potentially enormous databases full of not only sensitive information but also seemingly benign data such as tastes, preferences and other obscure information. This type of information can be used to bypass password recovery mechanisms for email accounts, bank accounts, federal student loan accounts, social networking sites, etc. Endless personal data, including medical diagnoses, drug prescriptions, internet search history, etc. is housed on countless databases, and is potentially available to almost anyone (it might be “anonymized” and released for research, lost through security leaks and attacks, or simply gathered and sold or utilized by ISPs or companies like Google, Apple and Amazon). The ease with which this information can be uniquely identified is startling, and the potential of seemingly benign data to cause harm is real.

Should We Try to Stop It?

Collectively, we have all already lost more of our privacy than we care to recognize. Perhaps this will be disastrous, or perhaps we will simply emerge into a new society that will inarguably be forced to confront issues and topics we’d just as soon leave alone. Will the government be watching us all like big brother, or will it simply make all of our choices for us? Will companies continue to find newer and better ways to exploit our secrets for their pecuniary gain? Will we all carry smart phones to snap pictures of friends and complete strangers, and, using the same face-recognition technology that already auto-tags your friends, have entire dossiers of their personal information at our fingertips?

As long as technology continues to advance, and people continue to subscribe to the “always connected” culture of Facebook, cell phones, GPS, wireless internet, AIM and G-Chat, privacy will continue to erode. This is the fundamental shift in society of our time, and there is no real way to keep it from happening. Throwing away your computer or deleting all your online accounts won’t change anything. What I'm less sure of is the extent and reversibility of the impact our connected culture will have on the "ecology" of software development, and (sorry Eben) I don't know enough to say whether free and open source software is the elixir that could solve all our problems. But what can, and should happen is the continued protection of rights we have always held dear, and greater accountability of corporate players. Freedom, autonomy and liberty will require new protections, and egregious infringements of rights should never be tolerated. The “Myspace Generation” that entered adolescence knowing nothing else is already here, and the trend towards greater openness and interconnectedness will continue. Where it takes us requires our utmost attention, but trying to stop or reverse it is like trying to stop the railroads and the settling of the West. Maybe it wasn’t done correctly, a few powerful players got very rich, and people’s rights were certainly violated along the way, but in the end it happened.

We all have a deep intuitive sense of the normative value of privacy, but it will continue to be eroded in the pursuit of progress. Employers will utilize ever more invasive background checks, law-enforcement will take advantage of new resources for catching criminals and terrorists, and society will applaud the advances like it did with everything else that has made our lives “better,” or “improved our quality of life.” The only question now is, how much lost privacy will we tolerate, and how will we strike the balance in a new world of readily accessible intimate information? We simply can’t (and maybe shouldn’t) stop the erosion of privacy entirely, but we should most definitely care about it, and ensure it occurs on our terms, something most of us have not been doing when we point and click "agree," and grunt with satisfaction as our apps download and our personal liberties disappear.

Hi Art,

I thought this was really well-written and you did a good job of presenting some of the issues surrounding privacy and the realities that few Americans acknowledge about what that loss of privacy COULD mean.

I have a few questions (that maybe you couldn’t answer because of the word limit) --- is there something ultimately different about the “big brother” of this time (people knowingly giving away information) and the big brother of Moglen’s time where he lived in a home with a tapped phone? If so, what caused the change in Americans’ willingness to give up so much freedom? (9/11? Propaganda campaigns about the need for national security? Fear? Apathy?)

The only critique I have is that you don’t really make an argument. You say “maybe” a few times and never really come out on one side of the argument. You fail to commit to a particular position. It’s almost as if you only want to make the point that the loss of privacy is a fact and never really say whether this loss is good or bad but summarize some of the effects of that loss. At one point you say “sinister or benign”, can it be both or are there pros and cons but ultimately the invasion is sinister/benign? I think it would strengthen your paper if you made an argument, acknowledged the potential counterarguments but still came down on a particular side (i.e. we should attempt to stop the erosion of our privacy because xyz or in it’s counter, we shouldn’t attempt to stop it). We all know the erosion is happening but does the good outweigh the bad or is it an egregious infringement on our right to privacy? I can’t say that I know anything about privacy and I did find your paper enlightening but I’m not sure if your purpose is to just offer information or to make an argument.

Also, just a couple of questions: How would we ensure that the loss of privacy happens on our terms? Is there any current discussion in Washington about this issue? Are there any movements (mainstream or grassroots) attempting to limit or fight government intrusion? How much privacy do YOU think Americans will tolerate? Doesn’t it seem like we are on a slippery slope where we daily offer more and more of ourselves for public access so much so that the government doesn’t really need to do anything but watch what we say about ourselves? ( Just imagine the future Supreme Court confirmations of this generation or the next when every emotion, moment, etc. is captured and archived on Facebook. Yikes) These are more questions for thought rather than substantive additions to your paper unless you can do it within the word limit.

Again, I thought it was really well-written and I wouldn’t change much depending on your purpose.

p.s.- I hope you don’t mind me writing in purple instead of red. Don’t think I’m scary enough to write in Moglen’s “scary red text”.

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