Why is it everybody goes crazy over ‘invasion of privacy’, again? This is all based on the assumption of ‘the government is evil and will sell all information to the highest bidder’, right? People seem to lose all sense of proportion when it comes to the combination of technology / privacy…

As it is there’s a log every time you use your credit/debit card, and most chains with clubcards etc. keep track of individual purchases. Just seems like something else for bored people to get hysterical about to me.

Read this and tell me if you still think clubcards aren’t potentially harmful. I hate the things, personally, and wish they were outlawed. They don’t save us money at all, because stores jack up the prices to cover the cost of the program. So if you want to opt out, you’re going to pay for it. Ah, but it’s not big deal, right? Wrong. Because it estalishes a precendent so that when a similar loyalty cards are used at, say, banking institutions, allowing them to analyze the profitiability of each customer and basically discriminate against them, they can point to clubcards and say, “But it’s really no different than those.”

As for privacy, sure some people aren’t bothered by the continual degradation of our privacy. But those same people would say that Big Brother always watching you is going too far. Anyone would, right? So where do you draw the line? Something as insidious and far-reaching as Big Brother could never be set up overnight, of course–the people would never stand for it. But that’s not how it happens. Freedom and privacy can be taken away little bit by little bit over many years. You’d hardly notice at first, and when you did, you might not care. But again, every invasion of privacy is used as a precedent for a further invasion of privacy.

And it’s not that governments are “evil”. Most of the people in government and in the police force are probably good people. But they have jobs to do. Like catching criminals. Or keeping the country safe from terrorists. And they know that they can do it more effectively if they could reduce the public’s civil liberties and rights to privacy. So they pass bills to try to make that happen. It could be with the best of intentions. But once it’s law, watch how tempting it becomes for authorities to abuse that power.

I could go on at great length here, but suffice it to say that I am very glad that privacy and civil liberty groups exist to fight for the rest of us, even if most of us don’t really care. Anyone that thinks that an Orwellian society could never happen in today’s western world is, in my opinion, not paying attention. One only has to look at the United States after 911 to see just how quickly privacy and civil liberties can be eroded when they can be justified in the name of security. It’s happening in Canada too.

William S. Burroughs warned that the U.S. government’s “war on drugs” was merely a pretext for creating a vast police apparatus that would forever supercede all our claims to privacy and property. I believe he was right. Now, it’s the “war on terror” that is being used as the pretext (in addition to the war on drugs). The nice thing about these so-called wars is that they will likely never end. But the war on terror is more insidious because it uses continual, blatant fear as the means to keep the public pacified and accepting of the erosions on their civil liberties and privacy.

Ah, look what you made me do, going on like this. I’m stopping right now.

I think it’s hardly paranoid in this post-P.A.T.R.I.O.T. era (in the United States, anyway) for people to feel a bit encroached upon when it comes to personal privacy. The idea that privacy lost in the commercial sector can have serious personal ramifications is not far-fetched either.
The now-defunct Total Information Awareness (now reborn in a multi-state cooperative program called the “Matrix”) was going to use data mining of records like mortgage & credit report information to assess security risks for all citizens, and the new CAPPS II system will do exactly that for passengers boarding planes in the U.S.
Of course nobody would have to worry *now* about a sweater that broadcasts a unique barcode a couple of feet, but nobody worried about publicly available personal credit histories before the Social Security Act in 1935, because they didn’t exist yet (Social Security numbers are the primary identification used to link public documents to compile credit reports). The point is, RF Barcoding is undeniably a technology that has significant societal implications, and with the exception of privacy and technology groups like this, there is currently no public debate whatsoever.

Who said anything about the government? The businesses that own the government are the problem.

Well that serves me right for starting a debate on a topic I don’t know much about :-) Hope I didn’t wind you up too much!

I was due for a good rant. :)

I can’t help but wonder if those of us who fear the slipping away of personal freedoms are a bit older than those who tend to shrug their shoulders and say, “No biggie.”  

I certainly don’t remember being nearly so concerned in my 20s and 30s of government/big business/any institution’s control of my private life as I am now (I can’t remember what 30 even feels like :-)  ).

I could be wrong.   There may be just as many Baby Boomers who think NO governmental or other kind of institution would ever use private info to control or manipulate in any way.  This may be one of those, “Yes, global warming will destroy the planet” or “No, global warming is no big deal,” issues that people of all ages love to debate… I just have a feeling that the longer one lives, the more one understands the potential for evil among those with power.

Sprint has already developed two RFID apps based on customer loyalty cards; if you have the card with you, a store will pop up a computer controlled avatar to greet you and make offers based on your past purchases.

See Sprint RFID Loyalty Card Triggers Minority Report-Style Ads.

Bill

Just last night I watched a show on the LA Police department, hosted by Peter Jennings.  Jennings asked a straight question of the current police chief, something like (highly paraphrased), "People in LA are scared of the police.  You seem to be using any excuse (like seatbelts) to stop someone and seach them and their car.  Do you feel justified in treating all people this way?"  And the response was something like (again, paraphrased), "We know that doing this lets us reduce crime."

Of course, I think it’s a very difficult job that the LA police have been asked to do.  But it’s sad and scary that they feel that in order to do their jobs they feel justified in running everybody through a screen, tossing back the good ones and jailing the few bad ones.

Interesting idea. I’m 21 and don’t really care that much about privacy, but I’m a real exception amongst my friends. Mention, for example, ID cards and the immediate reaction is that they’re a bad thing because they ‘invade people’s privacy’. Privacy is much more of a hot topic amongst my friends than civil liberties; I’d say that younger people tend to have less understanding of the phrase ‘civil liberties’ (myself included), possibly as they’ve never had any first hand experience of direct ‘violations’.

Heh. What you see as ‘the longer one lives, the more one understands the potential for evil amongst those in power’, I’ve always seen as increasing, generally unjustified, cynicism due to the world not getting any ‘better’. But I may change my mind :-)

Regarding the ‘right’ to personal privacy, can anyone recommend any philosophical writings on the subject? I am but a n00b and would like to get some understanding before I shoot my mouth off again :-)

I googled and found this. Looks like exactly what you wanted. I’ll give it a read myself.

but not because the world’s not getting better.  The world IS getting better.  We couldn’t have had this exchange in the 1970s, for example. (Well, you wouldn’t have been on the planet, primarily…but even if you had been, there would have been no Sciscoop. No net.)  

My personal world keeps getting better, too. But still, my cynicism has grown in proportion to my age.  Losing trust or faith in one’s government, leaders, or other major influences on one’s quality of life usually takes time, it seems to me.  I’ve taught over 3,500 adolescents/young adults over the past 30 years, and only a very few have professed convincing cynicism.  

Tell you the truth, krypto, I hope you’re right.  I’d love for my cynicism to be unjustified. I hope you never have reason to change your mind :-).  Now I’m going to tackle Drog’s privacy find!        

Remember (big electronics retailer)’s wireless cash registers that wardrivers in the parking lots would use to pick up customer credit card numbers?

Relatively inexpensive portable RFID transmitters/receivers will quickly become available for store inventory control. Which means they’ll also be available for thieves who want to prowl the parking lots of malls, etc. looking for cars where expensive purchases have been stashed for ’safety’. No more guessing what’s under the blanket in the back of that minivan, you’ll know if they’re covering some trash from a Burger King trip or a new home theater system. Adds a whole new dimension to the Christmas shopping season. ;^)

that seems to be exactly what I was after, thanks!