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Much of her discussion amounts to a description of what a mess it would be for companies I deal with if they didn't have an easy way to cross-correlate their databases with each other. She's right about that -- and that is the point. I want it to be difficult. It's true, as she says, that I'm in at least fifty databases out there. The problem is that the majority of them don't serve me. Had I a choice, those database entries would be deleted. Since that isn't possible, I'll settle for them being difficult to find by others outside the organizations that own them. I can't think of any reason why my bank would need to know what videotapes I've been renting, or have the ability to access my medical records. There does seem to be some fundamental differences in assumptions between us. She makes the following comment: I think Steven and I are really at odds regarding the nature of privacy. It's my impression that he thinks it's a right, while I believe it to be an economic function. Even assuming that the above scenario might qualify as a reductio ad absurdum, it's clear that instituting a strict privacy protection scheme would impose a large cost burden across the entire structure of the credit-based economy, which would then be distributed to the end users in the form of higher interest rates and higher barriers to obtaining credit. I do indeed think that privacy is a right, and it happens to be one I value enormously. Once it's been given away, there will be no way to retrieve it, and I'm surely not going to sell it for a small reduction in the prices I pay for goods. But it's not just me that thinks privacy is a right; the courts do, too. (The right of privacy was the fundamental basis for the Roe-v.-Wade decision legalizing abortions, for example.) In private email exchanges with Atlee, I learn that she is much younger than I am. She asked, somewhat rhetorically, why that made any difference. Actually, there are two reasons. She's young enough so that computer databases have been with her during her entire adult life; she thinks of them as being "of course" how things are done. Actually, they're a recent creation, and the ability to cross-correlate them in the way I object to only has developed within the last 20 years. Many of the things she describes about how difficult it would be to do credit checks describe how things were actually done in the 1970's -- and yet the economy seemed to survive it. The fact is that the negative consequences she postulates for the situation where no universal unambiguous access key was permitted are not serious. She's also young enough so that she didn't live through the Nixon presidency, which was as close as the US has come to being converted into a police state. We had a president who deliberately tried to subvert the election process, who authorized illegal acts, who was guilty of obstruction of justice and of lying to law enforcement officials, and who quite literally thought of himself as being above the law. He and his people maintained an "enemies list" and used the power of government, such as the IRS, to harass the people on it. We survived it, fortunately, because there were good men in Congress and elsewhere who refused to ignore it and refused to let it happen. Those of us who lived through that learned very vividly that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. There are many who would try to take away our rights, for numerous reasons: to increase security, to improve efficiency, or anything else. We must always be aware of what we gain and what we lose in those transactions. If we do lose our freedom it won't be all at once, it will be eaten away by ants. The use of the SSN in the way I object to is one of the ants, but if we ignore the ants then the foundation of our liberty will surely crumble. (discuss) And no, I don't think I'm being overly dramatic. |
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