[ietf-privacy] Article, toward a definition of privacy (or perhaps not).

[Dean Willis <[e-mail]>]

See:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/11/07/privacy_red_herring_debate_NSA_surveillance_debate#sthash.6ygfpfyV.dpbs


An exceprt:

"I'd add one more item to Solove's list of definitions: when people speak of privacy, often what they're really concerned about is not privacy at all, but very concrete kinds of economic and physical harm: job loss, theft, injury, imprisonment, and even death. That is: when people speak of privacy they're often speaking -- albeit indirectly -- about power, and its uses and abuses.”

"It's one thing to know, in the abstract, that anyone walking by your house can see into your kitchen window, but it's another thing altogether to look out the kitchen window and discover someone staring fixedly at you. It's one thing to know that the soccer mom sitting one table over at Starbucks can probably make out the words on your laptop screen; it's another thing altogether to know that "the government" can do the same thing.”

"The man staring fixedly through our kitchen window bothers us not because we think he might discover us doing something "secret," but because he has violated norms of socially acceptable behavior in a way that makes him unpredictable: if he's willing to violate norms against staring, what other norms might he also violate? Will he become a stalker, a blackmailer, a burglar, a rapist, a murderer?"

"Privacy is a red herring in the debate about NSA surveillance (and many other kinds of covert activities). If we want meaningful reform, we need to set aside the rhetoric of privacy, and focus instead on creating genuine safeguards against the abuse of government power."

—
Dean