Another exchange.
Pick 1:
1. Free
2. Private
Yeah, I'm beginning to belive this. Mentioned a book in the reviews section called "The Transparent Society," and I'm beginning to believe that Brin was right. I can't see a good way to maintain privacy and still maintain our freedoms.
Basic argument goes like this - if we have strong laws to protect our privacy, then the powerful will find ways around those laws (power can be used to exert influence to avoid laws - C.F. Enron, et. al.) and use that information to control us. In fact, we're already falling into that trap, what with massive personal information databases, cable boxes that track what we're watching, etc.
So we end up in a situation where the Powerful know a lot about us, but we don't know much about the powerful.
Brin suggests going the other direction - repealing ALL the privacy laws. For EVERYBODY. No closed door sessions, and you can't sue somebody for sticking a bug on your wall, or walking a mechanical cockroach into their room with a camera, etc.
Now, you're thinking "Hey, what about stalkers/kidnappers/blackmailers?" Well, that's one of the nice things about this - there's a heck of a lot more people who AREN'T that type than there are - and if everybody's watching everybody else, it's going to be a lot easier to catch those people than it is today.
At least that the general idea. It's all dependent on cheap monitoring technology becoming availible - but that's what R 'n D is for...
