COMPETITION 55

NET BENEFIT — FURTHER PRIVACY PROMOTION DAMAGES SOCIETY

OVER-PROMOTION OF PRIVACY HAS DAMAGED SOCIETY

RANDOLPH COURT; technology policy analyst, Progressive Policy Institute, The New Democrat, February, 1999 / March, 1999; Pg. 30 TITLE: PUBLIC INTEREST IN PRIVATE MATTERS; The Search for Balance Between Privacy and the Common Good in the Cyber Age // acs-VT2001

With that as a backdrop, George Washington University sociologist Amitai Etzioni, one of the founding fathers of "communitarian" social philosophy, has written a book privacy advocates and civil libertarians are sure to hate. In The Limits of Privacy, Etzioni argues that "immoderate champions of privacy have not merely engaged in rhetorical excesses but . . . these excesses have had significant and detrimental effects."

WE MAY HAVE TOO MUCH PRIVACY NOW

Robert O'Harrow Jr. The Washington Post, May 24, 1999, SECTION: STYLE; Pg. C02; BOOK WORLD TITLE: How Much Privacy Is Good for You? // acs-EE2001

In answering these questions, Etzioni contends that, contrary to conventional misgivings and the complaints of civil libertarians, we often have too much privacy. To make society a safer, more civil place, individuals should consider allowing authorities greater access to the details of their lives in order to root out crime, terrorism and other threats. "Behind these observations," he writes, "lies the assumption that good societies carefully balance individual rights and social responsibilities, autonomy and common good, privacy and concerns for public safety and public health, rather than allow one value or principle to dominate."

THE STATUS QUO ALREADY HAS TOO MUCH PRIVACY

ADAM WOLFSON; executive editor of the Public Interest, The Weekly Standard, March 27, 2000 SECTION: BOOKS & ARTS; Pg. 38 TITLE: The Private Interest; In our confessional culture, we have a right of privacy -- and nothing private // acs-VT2001

In The Limits of Privacy, Amitai Etzioni claims that we suffer from too much privacy. As the country's fore-most communitarian, Etzioni has, in scores of books and articles, taken liberalism to task for pushing individual rights, including privacy, beyond what is good for the country. According to Etzioni, a radical individualism overtook the culture during the last quarter century, raising the right of privacy above the commonweal. In his thoughtful examination of issues from the testing of infants for HIV to the public use of medical records, Etzioni argues that we have generally erred on the side of privacy. He usefully reminds rights-happy liberals that privacy should not automatically trump the common good. And he usefully reminds road-to-serfdom libertarians that, historically, privacy and other individual liberties have been lost because of breakdowns in social order, not because of Big Brother's long reach.