- This article or section should be merged with privacy
Privacy is a modern construct. The founding fathers of the United States did not mention it in the Constitution and until the 1960's there was no mention of privacy in the judicial system. Privacy has its advantages and disadvantages and they are outlined below.
Unrestricted flow of information is the life of democracies. Our founding fathers emphasized on the freedom of speech so that there is enough discussion and information available to people when making a choice to elect who will govern and that those who are elected stay honest and transparent and it has worked. Every decision in life is about making choices and if unrestricted flow of information has worked on the macro level it sure can work on the micro level. The more information available about people the lower the risk in dealing with other people and the better relations between people. In most instances little information is more harmful than full information. If information is widely available then facts can generally be verified through many different sources and there are less chances of inaccuracies. Human beings should be free to learn about each other as they always have been and the freedom to learn about each other is as fundamental and unalienable as any other right. Unrestricted flow of information is a great equalizer for the only way there can be a big brother institution is if information is only available to a select few. If information is widely available to everyone then there cannot be any big brother institution.
Why would someone need to keep their information private? Information only has value if it is discreet and not widely available. Besides if someone has nothing that they would be ashamed of why would they worry about privacy. Keeping people information private only creates misinformation and intolerance. Just look at authoritarian systems like communism, fascism or dictatorships. Wide dissemination of information creates a transparent, tolerant and honest society. How can someone be dishonest when there is no means by which they can hide their true selves. And why would someone have any need for hiding their true selves if there is no intolerance. Honest people have nothing to fear from the unrestricted flow of information. The more information available about people the better decisions people can make. The more information available about people the lower the risk in dealing with other people. In most instances little information is more harmful than full information. If information is widely available then facts can generally be verified through many different sources and there are less chances of inaccuracies.
One would raise the issue that they would just like to be left alone. In today's fast track world does anyone have the time to bother anyone without any special interest or motive. And if someone has a special interest no amount of restrictions are going to stop that person from getting access to information. And in all actuality only this special interest person having access to information can create more harm than good. Take for example Identity Theft. Why is there an incentive for someone to steal anyone's identity. One major reason is that they can steal the identity and gain credit and other monetary advantage. Why is it possible for thieves to use the stolen identity. Because all the information about people is not available to everyone. If creditors or employers could also have access to other information such as pictures of people, and other such identifying information it would be very difficult for thieves to use the stolen identity information..
Take the example of the Mortgage and loan industry. Do you think this industry would exist if the payment history of everyone was kept private or if there was no way of knowing the credit and payment history of an individual or business. If there was no way of recording credit and payment histories, most bankers or companies would be hesitant to loan funds, as there would be no way to make an informed decision or find out the chances of the loan getting paid.Does anyone dig deep into why is spamming so widespread in spite of all the restrictions on it. If businesses or people could accurately find out people who would be interested in their products or services, why would they waste their time, energy or money in randomly targeting others. There is no incentive for them to do so. The more people try to keep their information private the more spamming and junk mail. Besides doesn't my life become easier if others know exactly what I want.
Human beings should be free to learn about each other, as they always have been. Consumers do not need a law to protect them from people trying to develop and offer goods and services. "Bad guy" behavior like fraud and identity theft is already illegal. A top-down regulatory approach to privacy threatens electronic commerce. An established shopkeeper on main street can see and speak to his customers. He can get an idea by just looking if they are regulars or newcomers, locals or tourists; he can chat with them and learn why they decided to buy or not to by a tempting item. By contrast, an electronic commerce merchant working from the web is blind and deaf. He is a stranger dealing with strangers over vast distances. Are his customers one-time visitors or are they more loyal? Are they young or old, male or female? If they fill out an order form and abandon it, why? Under these circumstances, its natural for a web site to try to learn more about its visitors. Regulations that would make it harder for businesses to collect information about markets threaten small business, in particular. Big companies already know who their customers are and can afford expensive lawyers to comply with complicated new rules. Small businesses would be hit harder.
You are starting a new business selling pets and pet supplies. Your competitors are big, well-established chains. You have no customers, and no way to find them. You can't afford television advertising. Your mass mailings have only a 2 percent response rate--the costs are far exceeding the benefits. You want to rent a mailing list from an established company in order to reach only customers who are interested in pets in your area. Then you discover that the only mailing list available is tiny, outdated, and very expensive. Fearing liability, many companies have stopped trading information about pet supply purchases. You decide that you just cannot afford to be in the pet business. Over the next decades, entrepreneurs will experiment and discover many amazing new things to do with information. Consumers will be able to get up-to-date information tailored to their tastes and preferences. The wasteful practice of sending out thousands of flyers to discover only a bare handful of interested customers will end. Prices will fall. New companies can benefit from what older companies have learned about what consumers really buy to start new businesses and offer new products. This means more choice and lower prices for consumers.
Sometimes companies and their employees will make mistakes. But that doesn't mean we need top-down regulation. In the age of the Internet, consumers can easily find what company offers the lowest prices and best service. Businesses with the best reputation for giving customers what they want--privacy, low prices, or anything else--will do best. In competitive markets, companies have every reason to respond to a real customer demand for confidentiality. Markets means that problems will be fixed from the bottom-up, in an endless and flexible process of learning and experimentation. This bottom-up process is the only way to address concerns about privacy without strangling the development of the economy with red tape. It's one thing for a company to try to respond to their customer's demands voluntarily. It's another thing entirely for an army of lawyers to force entire industry to implement a one-size-fits all privacy policy.
One favorite area of privacy fanatics is medical information. They say that releasing someone's medical information creates discrimination. But this hiding of information is precisely what sustains the discrimination and intolerance. It gives diseases a negative stigma. It helps in the propagation of diseases. Take the example of dating. When someone meets someone new it is very difficult to know if the other person has any STD's. And this is why STD's propagate. If there was a system where someone could verify the STD status of anyone it would not only curb the propagation of that disease but also give a great incentive to the person having the disease to get it cured.
Another favorite area of privacy fanatics is profiling by law enforcement. The main goal of law enforcement agencies is to maintain law and order. Every law enforcement agency tries to use their limited resources to the best of their ability. Take the example of police profiling a specific group. If police keep on targeting a certain group without any success do you think most police departments would continue with that policy forever? Continue wasting resources on something that doesn't work? Instead of restricting profiling wouldn't it be more prudent to have profiling quantified, analyzed and its rate of success widely discussed and disseminated. If time after time profiling a certain group does not produce any different results than that of profiling other groups what incentive would be there in pursuing that policy. And if a certain group does have a higher crime rate than another, it would provide an incentive to the members of that particular group to take action to seek out the cause and remedy it.
Excerpts of Some court rulings related to this matter:
Excerpt of a ruling by 10th U.S. Circuit Court Judge Deanell Tacha: "Although we may feel uncomfortable knowing that our personal information is circulating in the world, we live in an open society where information may usually pass freely," wrote 10th Circuit Court Judge Deanell Tacha. "A general level of discomfort from knowing that people can readily access information about us does not necessarily rise to the level of a substantial state interest ... for it is not based on an identified harm," Tacha wrote.
Excerpt of a ruling by Samuel Podberesky, assistant general counsel for aviation enforcement, Privacy is not, an absolute 'personal and fundamental right ... particularly in the context of air travel," Podberesky wrote in the ruling.
Excerpt of a ruling by U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit A company that provides e-mail service has the right to copy and read any message bound for its customers, a federal appeals court panel has ruled The court ruled that because e-mail is stored, even momentarily, in computers before it is routed to recipients, it is not subject to laws that apply to eavesdropping of telephone calls, which are continuously in transit. As a result, the majority said, companies or employers that own the computers are free to intercept messages before they are received by customers. In upholding a lower court decision, the appeals panel majority said Congress intended for "any temporary, intermediate storage" of communication to be governed by laws other than those involving wiretapping or other interception.
Excerpt of a ruling by Judge Kathleen M. O'Conner, Washington. In a ruling Judge Kathleen M. O'Connor of Spokane County Superior Court reckoned that the Washington privacy law does not apply to computer communications because the words of the statute do not specifically mention computers as a covered device.
Excerpt of a ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S Supreme Court In Doe v. Chao, coal miners claimed that in the handling of their federal black-lung benefits, their Social Security numbers were improperly released to attorneys, judges and coal company representatives. Several of the miners, using pseudonyms, sued the government under the Privacy Act. But the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the miners had not shown that they suffered any actual damages from the release. U.S. Supreme Court justices heard lengthy and technical debate over whether actual harm must be shown to win damages, or if proof of intentional violation of the act is sufficient. Justice Stephen Breyer said that with widespread release of Social Security numbers and other information, it is easy to imagine bankruptcy for the federal treasury if it were made too easy to win damages. Government lawyer Malcolm Stewart also cautioned against making it too easy to recover Privacy Act damages against the government. He said. Social Security numbers are not inherently secret or private.
Excerpt of a ruling in Mattivi v. Russell A newspaper is not liable under the federal Driver's Privacy Protection Act for publishing an accident report prepared by state police, a federal court has ruled. (Mattivi v. Russell, Aug. 2, 2002.) This is one of several recent decisions in which courts have rejected attempts to expand the reach of the privacy protection act.
| 
