AFFIRMATIVE PRIVACY — GENERAL 5

AMERICA IS IN A PRIVACY CRISIS

WE HAVE NOW ENTERED A NATIONAL PRIVACY DANGER ZONE

Alex Salkever, The Christian Science Monitor, July 26, 1999, SECTION: USA; TECHNOLOGY; Pg. 2 TITLE: Playing 'I spy' in a high-tech world // acs-EE2001

"I think we are already in the danger zone," he [says Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)]says. "We have clearly entered a period where we have to making some important decisions individually and collectively about how to protect privacy in the information world. I don't think there is any simple solution."

PRIVACY IS UNDER ASSAULT ALL AROUND US, AND MOSTLY BY CAPITALISM

Tom Regan The Christian Science Monitor January 27, 2000, SECTION: FEATURES; BOOKS; Pg. 17 TITLE: Don't look now, but we know all about you // acs-EE2001

It's just this kind of "policy" that is at the heart of Simson Garfinkel's "Database Nation: The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century." Garfinkel, who wrote about technology for the Monitor in the early 1990s, argues convincingly that our privacy is under assault from a variety of sources, including government agencies, talented computer-geek teenagers next door (or in Tombouctou!), but most consistently from "capitalism, the free market, advanced technology, and the unbridled exchange of electronic information."

THERE IS VERY LITTLE PRIVACY PROTECTION TODAY

JEFF KUNERTH, The Houston Chronicle, August 22, 1999, SECTION: A; Pg. 16 TITLE: Trust, privacy endangered; Society's advances in technology could threaten way of life // acs-EE2001

Some of this split personality is found in the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the right to free expression, pursuit of happiness and a sanctity of the home that prohibits search and seizure.

But nowhere does the Bill of Rights guarantee privacy.

"The definition of privacy is the ability to control our personal information," said Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a San Diego-based consumer-protection organization. "There is precious little privacy protection today."

WE ONLY MISS PRIVACY WHEN IT IS GONE

Charles J. Sykes, The San Francisco Chronicle, APRIL 30, 2000, SECTION: SUNDAY CHRONICLE; Pg. 1/Z1 TITLE: Invasion of the Privacy Snatchers // acs-EE2001

Unfortunately, for most of us, privacy is like oxygen: We only appreciate it when it is gone. How else do we explain its erosion in our daily lives -- the lack of protection for our medical records, the extraordinary proliferation of private-sector and government databases, our casual willingness to give out sensitive financial information?

Part of the answer may be that few Americans have anything but the vaguest idea just how much of their lives is transparent, or how vulnerable they are to the new instruments of surveillance.