Slashdot Mirror
David Brin on Privacy
David Brin is interviewed and provides some strong words on modern conceptions of privacy and why they're off-base. Brin asserts - and argues well - that a land with little privacy is a freer land.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Apart from the fourth amendment, of course. Or what did you think "searches" means?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
However, one might argue that most of our rights amount to one uber-Right To Be Free From Government Molestation In Our Personal Affairs. That amounts to about the same thing, IMO. If you were aware that gov't was monitoring (for reasons perhaps unknown) and/or recording (for reasons that could change from what you were originally told) what you spoke, where you went, who you talked to, etc, it may cause you to alter your activities. That's a restriction on those primary liberties.
Constitutionally Correct
One cannot forget that the Right to Privacy is not a constitutional right. Nowhere in the Constitution does it state that American citizens have a right to privacy.
Possibly because, given the technology of the time, a right to privacy made about as much sense as a right to breathe air; there was simply no need to state something so fundamental. After all, even in the most oppressive regimes, people still breathed. If you wanted to have a private conversation, just walk into the middle of a field with your friends and talk.
The fact that it does not is no reflection on the competence of the Founding Fathers, and the lack of it in the Constitution also does not mean that it should not exist.
A Bill of Rights written today, like this one does include a right to privacy. And who knows what such a Bill written 2302 will need to contain?
Brin writes:
> Biometric-based I.D. cards for everybody are coming.
> Squint, look ahead 50 years and honestly tell me you
> can envision a world where such things are not simply
> assumed.
I think what bothered me most about the article was this particular foregone conclusion about the future. I hate to disappoint Brin, but I'm not so imaginatively myopic that his is the only future I can see.
> The important factor is not whether such cards exist,
> but whether they are a tool for robbing us of things
> we want and need.
This seems to imply that what we really want or need could be a _lack_ of such intrusive measures in our lives. There comes a point where if you're being challenged to validate your identity at every turn, we begin to adopt a mentality of "That which is not expressly permitted is automatically forbidden."
This flies in the face of the principles on which this nation was founded. As others have pointed out, read through the first ten ammendments (Bill of Rights) to the U.S. Constitution. Disregard what the courts have done to this fine set of principles in the last hundred years, and just read it.
If that doesn't say, "Anything not expressly forbidden is permitted, oh and by the way, these are limits that the powers can be can place on those 'forbiddens'" then I don't know what does.
Quite simply, the society that Brin sees us moving more towards is unamerican in its principles. If our government and society are to collapse and fail eventually, then let it do so because of a failure of the principles that it was founded on, not because of our collective unwillingness to stick to those principles.
There are situations when I'll gladly give out my personal information if it means I'll get service faster or better or more personalized.
...
Case in point - say you shop at store X all the time. The sales people (or whatever title they're using these days) know you by name, etc...
You get better service because they *know* you. It's like leaving decent tips at a restaurant. After a while you get excellent service because the waiters/waitresses *know* you're going to leave them a decent tip as long as they give you good service.
The Web isn't much different. If I do a lot of shopping on-line at a particular place then I'd expect if I call with a problem or a special order that I'd get some damn good service simply because of a history of patronage.
The issue is that *I* want to be able to control who has the information and who doesn't. And quite frankly, my favorite restaurant/jewelry store doesn't go around selling my contact information to every Tom, Dick and Harry that asks for it. Some of my favorite Web sites DO.
That, IMO, is the real issue. You have less control over who has your info in VR than in RL.
So yes - I would prefer to receive targetted marketing than what I get now, which is junk. And in order to do targetted marketing they need to have some sort of demographic information on you.
And maybe if Corp XYZ knew that millions of us actually liked product A or TV show B then we would't be so pissed off when the product is discontinued or the show is cancelled. If they don't know who's eating/watching/drinking something, they have no financial incentive to continue their offering
I don't have a solution, but I certainly admire the problem.
Here's the fallacies I can pop off the top off my head:
Make every transaction, every movement traceable! Use scanners and biochips to make sure no one can perform a terraist [sic: Texan] act.
And how would this have stopped the men from threatening the passengers of the planes with boxcutters? The idea of a suicidal attack is that the attacker dies. What the hell use is the post-mortem activity of a dead man? The ability to throw every semite he knew into jail for the rest of their lives?
If we all lead transparent lives, then we can all live in peace --
Stop there.
The Bush administration has put ALL of its records into a vault, effectively for all time. And Reagan's. And Bush the First's. And Jeb's. Cheney is leading the way to establishing a totally opaque ruling junta. They are building walls around themselves. Hell, we don't even know where the Vice President is!!!
Guess which president's records are being selectively released, juiciest scandal-provoking one's first, by the administration? Oh, guess, guess!! Of course, all surrounding records that may show the releases are out-of-context have been sealed. Why? National security, of course.
Point? Privacy is sacrosanct -- for this administration, and all future Republican administrations. And their corporate friends.
Think of it: you ever read the minutes of ANY meeting of ANY corporation such as Enron? EVER?
Their privacy is sacred. And will remain so.
The only thing we will get from "total transparency" is the loss of common rights of privacy for suspiciously arabic foreigners, all non-corporate Americans, and anyone who pisses off the future right-wing administrations, such as popular former Democratic presidents and near-presidents, and journalists who don't agree with the adminstration.
Why in the hell do sane men suddenly get Royalty on the brain whenever a right-wing adminstration comes into power, but want armed citizens ready for revolt when a non-right wing president holds office?
The current power structure has shown what it will do with "transparency": nail its enemies and reward its friends.
No, I think I'll stay with my freedom, if it's all the same to you.
Brin's argues that we should be screaming for more oversight, not for more privacy protections.
This argument seems a bit overly optimistic. Even if we have oversight, how do we know the government (or corporate America) is really disclosing everything they are doing with our private information. If Enron has taught us anything it's that corporations do not do what is in the best interest of even their own shareholders, let alone the random Joe Schmoe. Brin points to the Freedom of Information act as being a good example of oversight of the government. Is it? A lot of what people ask for comes back highly redacted.
Furthermore, his solution seems like it would be expensive. How much would all these oversight committees cost? Who's going to want to raise taxes to pay for them?
The simplest solution is to just protect people's privacy. I really don't see why Brin has a problem with that.
Several times, Brin also talks about how our Liberties are not based on controlling what the government knows about us. Really? Well, he must be ignoring those handy laws about the government not being able to search our homes unwarranted, and that people are assumed innocent until proven guilty. What he is advocating is a police state, where anything that is yours is the government's right to know about ("I cannot believe how many sincere civil libertarians have actually convinced themselves that freedom is best preserved by blinding government. That has nothing whatsoever to do with how we acquired our present liberties."). Wrong David. That has everything to do with it.
I think a *truly* awful government (I suppose we should define what that is) cannot be elected in a country with a strong free press.
The U.S. has lost a good deal of that strong free press in the last decade as enormous corporate entities have bought entire outlets, replaced their management with new blood more amenable to corporate goals, and overall have created monolithic conservative institutions. We can witness CNN falling to this effect at the moment as "liberal" voices are replaced with moderate conservatives posing as such.
I think power by coup can only occur in countries that lack respect for the rule of law.
I think you both miss the point. A coup did occur in 2000, and the free press you speak of no longer existed to point out the madness in the Supreme Court's ruling, nor the riot in the Dade Count recount office, nor to to intelligently analyze the recount audit released late last year. Our press has become a herd of sheep. The most frightening development I have ever seen.
The constant terror of nuclear bombs I witnessed twenty years ago should pale in comparison to the collapse of a critical press when the current administration seized power. But sadly, the voices that used to shout the alarm have been muzzled.
I grew up in small town American -- places where the neighbors knew who you were, and were likely to tell your parents what you were doing. There are some obvious bad points to that, but also good points. Brin's proposal amounts to using internet cameras, etc., to create a similar situation everywhere.
It's likely to happen regardless of whether we want it to or not -- between the government using every opportunity to stampede the sheeple into allowing increased governmental powers to "protect" them, and old folks whiling away their time with video cameras (I think that was a Brin novel...). But several things are needed to make the good balance the bad:
1. Government should be at least as subject to surveillance by citizens as the other way around. That is, if a corporate official comes around a congressman's home or office the day before a vote, we should at least be able to see him going in and out. If they go out to a restaurant, we can tape them -- if they are taping us.
2. There are a few government issues which have to be worked in secret -- weapons designs (sometimes), military planning, police investigations. But these categories should be strictly defined, as limited as possible. Everything else must be open to the public, and classified items must be opened up as soon as possible. There must be severe penalties for overclassifying materials -- mandatory minimum of being barred from ever working for the government again, plus fines and possible jail time. Don't depend on gov't prosecutors to enforce this -- private citizens can file charges before a grand jury, prosecute if the grand jury indicts, and get well-paid out of the fines. (I know, that's encouraging the sharks to go feed themselves. Better on gov't officials than us...)
3. There are public areas and private areas. You DON'T surveil private areas without a warrant. If you saw what Mr. Jones and Mrs. Smith were doing inside Mr. Smith's house, you'd better keep it to yourself, you damned peeping tom!
4. One big fear about a no-secrets society is that we have things we don't want the neighbors to know about -- not illegal stuff, but embarrassing. If you knew what your neighbors were hiding, you probably don't have anything to be embarrasssed about . We'll have to get used to people not being perfect. Small-towners know that -- and the only ones that are excessively concerned about what their neighbors are doing are the old ladies without a life... ("Old lady" is not defined by gender...)
5. Don't expect perfection from politicians, either. J. Edgar Hoover once had enormous power, more from fear of what might be in his secret files than from respect of his abilities as director of the FBI. Remember, once it's out in the open, it's not blackmail material any more...
5. Repeal a hell of a lot of outmoded laws. We're not only worried about the neighbors seeing something embarrassing, but also about some malicious DA digging up a 150 year old law and prosecuting.
If you've read Brin's earlier essays on this, I think the idea is that we all become (potentially) watchers.
If the government passes laws against civilian access to cameras, etc, it won't stop the government, or the rich. But the poor will not only be out of the loop (illegal cameras are expensive cameras) but they'll be punished if they ever compete.
If the laws put everyone on an equal footing then people can watch the rulers and the rich even while they're being watched themselves. Sure, no individual watcher is above corruption, but if we're all corrupted, does it count as corruption, or a changing society? If there are laws against the monitoring (as opposed to the use of knowledge from monitoring) it'll be hard to punish the people with smaller cameras, and police even now tend to go after the poor instead of the rich. If however the laws prevent the use of knowledge gained through snooping, we'll have the ammunition needed to take on the rich and powerful if they ever abuse their power enough for "us" to find it worth whistle-blowing.
I find the end of privacy to be inevitable, so I want some way to ensure we don't end up with 1984. I'd rather everyone could stare at me and vice versa (we'd all get over sexual hangups fairly soon) instead of only the elite few who control the police. Especially if those people could also watch the police and the officials, seeing that they followed their own laws.
It wouldn't be an ideal world, but it'd be better than others, and I think we're headed in that direction, like it or not.
Think about it. Greater insight into what our government is doing, supposedly on our behalf, is a Good Thing(tm) independent of Brin's transparent society ideal.
The reality of the world today is that each one of us leave a trail of bits as we pass through our days. The purpose of "privacy" is not to stop those bits, but to keep them from being aggregated and used against me.
If my kroger buyer card shows that I do not buy pork and I charge fuel and fertilizer on my lawn care company visa, I do not want to be questioned by the FBI as a terrorist. The oversite needs to be on the use of the data, not it's existance.
My doctor needs the ability to genetically screen for disease, but my insurance company, even if it knows my flaws, should not be allowed to charge more. In the past I had the security through obscurity that my privacy provides, but this is no longer the case.
The transparent society is an open source society. The 'source code' of an individual are their life experiences. The exploits are already in the wild. (People generally by milk and produce in a grocery so why are those sections the furthest apart?).
The success of the transparent society will depend on the protections we provide for our most valuable intellectual property we own, ourselves.
Lawrence Lessig has an article that descibes a new system for protecting IP. Add ability to copyright your personal data and we have a start on the Transparent Society.
SD
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â