NEGATIVE-PRIVACY-GENERAL 98

FEAR OF "BIG BROTHER" IS AN INVALID ARGUMENT

OUR FEAR OF BIG BROTHER IS GETTING IN THE WAY OF OUR BETTER JUDGMENT

Alan Ehrenhalt, Governing Magazine, May, 1999;Pg. 7 TITLE: THE MISGUIDED ZEAL OF THE PRIVACY LOBBY // acs-VT2001

America's obsessional fear of Big Brother is getting in the way of common sense and the provision for the common good.

GEORGE ORWELL DID US AN ANALYTICAL DISSERVICE BY WRITING SUCH AN IMPORTANT

BOOK -- 1984 AND BIG BROTHER HARM OUT DECISION MAKING ABOUT PRIVACY

Alan Ehrenhalt, Governing Magazine, May, 1999;Pg. 7 TITLE: THE MISGUIDED ZEAL OF THE PRIVACY LOBBY // acs-VT2001

I have great admiration for George Orwell, as a writer and thinker, and as a lifelong leftist who had the courage to expose communism for the hypocritical sham it was. But in one important way, Orwell did posterity a disservice. He depicted the surveillance methods of totalitarian society so vividly and so convincingly that an entire generation of otherwise reasonable Americans has convinced itself that Big Brother is watching them even when the truth is that Big Brother has far more important ways to spend his time.

CAPACITY TO INVADE PRIVACY IS NOT ENOUGH -- WE MUST DISTINGUISH ABERRATION FROM ROUTINE BEFORE WE DECIDE BIG BROTHER IS A THREAT

Alan Ehrenhalt, Governing Magazine, May, 1999;Pg. 7 TITLE: THE MISGUIDED ZEAL OF THE PRIVACY LOBBY // acs-VT2001

I'm not a simpleton. I know there are governments in this century that have operated that way. The Stasi collected tons of data on the daily habits of ordinary East Germans and filed them away for later use. The KGB knew who the Soviet dissidents were almost from the moment they opened their mouths. I am also aware that even in a free society, horrible miscarriages of justice take place. Waco was indefensible. The police in a one-party dictatorship couldn't have acted any more irresponsibly.

But mature citizens in a civilized country are required to make distinctions between aberration and routine. Those of us who lay awake at night in America in 1999 worrying about the government's desire to snoop on them are mostly either (1) paranoid or (2) guilty of something.