NEGATIVE-PRIVACY-SOLVENCY-GENERAL 108

WE CANNOT REGAIN OUR LOST PRIVACY WE HAD IN AN EARLIER AMERICA

WE CAN NEVER REGAIN THE SENSE OF PRIVACY WE HAD IN THE 1970'S

THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC, May 16, 1999 SECTION: ARTS & IDEAS; Pg. E1 TITLE: GOODBYE, PRIVACY; IT'S DOOMED IN A WORLD AFTER FASTER, CHEAPER, SAFER STUFF // acs-EE2001

In an increasingly wired world, people are continually creating information about themselves that is recorded and often sold or pooled with information from other sources.

The goal of privacy advocates is not extreme. Anyone who took these precautions would merely be seeking a level of privacy available to all 20 years ago. And yet such behavior now would seem obsessive and paranoid indeed.

That is a clue to how fast things have changed. To try to restore the privacy that was universal in the 1970s is to chase a chimera. Computer technology is developing so rapidly that it is hard to predict how it will be applied.

ONCE YOU LOSE PRIVACY, IT IS GONE

William D. Chalmers, The San Francisco Chronicle, APRIL 30, 2000, SECTION: SUNDAY CHRONICLE; Pg. 1/Z1 TITLE: There's No Business Like Your Business // acs-EE2001

Privacy, like virginity, cannot be recovered once it's lost. Forget Orwell's ominous "1984" warning about Big Brother watching your every move. In Y2K, the more insidious threat to our personal privacy comes from Little Brother: the infobrokers of Corporate America.

PRIVACY IS DOOMED, AND WE WILL BE GLAD OF IT FOR IT WILL PRODUCE SUBSTANTIAL BENEFITS

THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC, May 16, 1999 SECTION: ARTS & IDEAS; Pg. E1 TITLE: GOODBYE, PRIVACY; IT'S DOOMED IN A WORLD AFTER FASTER, CHEAPER, SAFER STUFF // acs-EE2001

People will have to start assuming they simply have no privacy. This will constitute one of the greatest social changes of modern times.

Privacy is doomed for the same reason that it has eroded so fast over the past two decades. Presented with the prospect of its loss, many might prefer to eschew even the huge benefits that the new information economy promises. But they will not, in practice, be offered that choice.

Instead, each benefit - safer streets, cheaper communications, more entertainment, better government services, more convenient shopping, a wider selection of products - will seem worth the surrender of a bit more personal information.

Privacy is a residual value, hard to define or protect in the abstract. The cumulative effect of these bargains - each attractive on their own - will be the end of privacy.