Privacy vs. Security
Bruce Schneier’s latest column is a diatribe against government surveillance, arguing that the current trend is toward less privacy and liberty, and that we might be overestimating the amount of security we get in exchange. These observations are nothing new, and Bruce is preaching to the choir by running this op-ed in CNET. In sticking to the conventional arguments about “big brother”,he missed an opportunity to raise the level of debate.
The amount and quality of data being collected by governments is dwarfed in comparison to what is being collected by individuals, corporations, and foundations; none of whom have the same level of oversight and transparency requirements as do government entities. TIA was an attempt to bring the government data warehouse up to the level that Safeway had years ago. With government surveillance cameras now outnumbered by private surveillance cameras (often unprotected wireless signals, even), proliferation of camera phones, GPS, and the rapid movement of things like online gaming, television viewing services, and video rental toward centralized systems which record habits; RFID, card-key access; it is clear that privacy is eroding quickly without any help from the government. And people use open wireless networks, connect to random servers on the Internet, sign up for dating services, social networks, community discussion boards without any thought to the privacy implications.
Privacy is one of the most important socialissues of the coming decades, and will only remain unresolved as long as we insist of framing it in partisan terms of government surveillance while ignoring the complex private social and technology factors.
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And, in more evidence that the blogspace is a brutal, cut-throat place, Scoble is taking one week off and has already been elbowed out of the way by a hungry young understudy.