Ministry Of Truth Helpfully Redefines Privacy

A United States Ministry of Truth spokesman proudly unveiled the new official definition of "privacy" today, on the heels of their successful campaign to redefine "torture." The new meaning of the word "privacy" will now be (according to MiniTru): "the secure feeling citizens get by knowing that their government is collecting and protecting their personal data." Old definitions of privacy will no longer be operative.

The MiniTru spokesman was quite enthusiastic about the definition rollout. "For generations Americans have been burdened by the responsibility of guarding their own privacy," he said. "This was too great a task for the public to adequately control, so the logical answer was to have the government take over this onerous work, to better serve each citizen's private life. No longer will Americans have to worry about their own privacy, because now Big Brother will take care of it for them."

OK, I made those quotes up, I admit. But I'm sad to say I didn't make up the story itself. Both the AP and the New York Times have stories about principal deputy director of national intelligence Donald Kerr's recent speech [PDF transcript] to the Geospatial Intelligence Foundation. Here are some of the quotes from Kerr:

"Our job now is to engage in a productive debate, which focuses on privacy as a component of appropriate levels of security and public safety."

. . .

"Too often, privacy has been equated with anonymity, but in our interconnected and wireless world, anonymity -- or the appearance of anonymity -- is quickly becoming a thing of the past."

When asked to elaborate on the "privacy does not equal anonymity" implications, Kerr responded:

It's a really good question because, in fact, it's a personal question that everyone, in a way, has to answer for themselves. But I think today, you know, I'm willing to call up, pick the vendor of your choice. I'm willing to share my credit card number and expiration date with a person I have never seen, have no idea whether they've been vetted or not. I've certainly been able to get past being anonymous in that transaction. And of course, you multiply that by all of the transaction [sic] that you're involved in every day.

I was taken by a thing that happened to me at the FBI, where I also had electronic surveillance as part of my responsibility. And people were very concerned that the ability to intercept emails was coming into play. And they were saying, well, we just can't have federal employees able to touch our message traffic. And the fact that, for that federal employee, it was a felony to misuse the data -- it was punishable by five years in jail and a $100,000 fine, which I don't believe has ever happened -- but they were perfectly willing for a green-card holder at an ISP who may or may have not have been an illegal entrant to the United States to handle their data. It struck me as an anomalous situation.

So this is not something where groupthink works for an answer. I think all of us have to really take stock of what we already are willing to give up, in terms of anonymity, but what safeguards we want in place to be sure that giving that up doesn't empty our bank account or do something equally bad elsewhere.

Kerr gets bonus points for using a Newspeak-y term "groupthink" in there, and for gratuitous immigrant-bashing as well.

Not content to rest on his laurels, he somewhat bizarrely took a swipe at Tonto, while explaining that we're all just going to have to get used to his new definition of privacy:

Too often, privacy has been equated with anonymity; and it's an idea that is deeply rooted in American culture. The Long Ranger [sic -- I'm sure he meant to say "Lone Ranger"] wore a mask but Tonto didn't seem to need one even though he did the dirty work for free. You'd think he would probably need one even more. But in our interconnected and wireless world, anonymity -- or the appearance of anonymity -- is quickly becoming a thing of the past.

Anonymity results from a lack of identifying features. Nowadays, when so much correlated data is collected and available -- and I'm just talking about profiles on MySpace, Facebook, YouTube here -- the set of identifiable features has grown beyond where most of us can comprehend. We need to move beyond the construct that equates anonymity with privacy and focus more on how we can protect essential privacy in this interconnected environment.

Protecting anonymity isn't a fight that can be won. Anyone that's typed in their name on Google understands that. Instead, privacy, I would offer, is a system of laws, rules, and customs with an infrastructure of Inspectors General, oversight committees, and privacy boards on which our intelligence community commitment is based and measured. And it is that framework that we need to grow and nourish and adjust as our cultures change.

I think people here, at least people close to my age, recognize that those two generations younger than we are have a very different idea of what is essential privacy, what they would wish to protect about their lives and affairs. And so, it's not for us to inflict one size fits all. It's a need to have it be adjustable to the needs of local societies as they evolve in our country. Eventually, we can only hope that people's perceptions -- in Hollywood and elsewhere -- will catch up.

So because I've used Google once in my life, I have agreed to have the United States government tap my email and phone?

Wow.

But seriously, this is the type of person who is supposed to be in charge of protecting privacy while "going after terrorists," and his complete inability to see the difference between a transaction between a citizen and a private company and the government's ability to listen in to that conversation. This is terrifying. That someone with such a basic lack of the principles involved is high up in the chain of command at National Intelligence, and is apparently informing the citizenry of the "new" and "improved" definition of privacy: Private is Public. Anonymous is Evil.

Towards the end of the AP article, the Electronic Freedom Foundation gives their response, which I couldn't agree with more:

Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group that defends online free speech, privacy and intellectual property rights, said Kerr's argument ignores both privacy laws and American history.

"Anonymity has been important since the Federalist Papers were written under pseudonyms," Opsahl said. "The government has tremendous power: the police power, the ability to arrest, to detain, to take away rights. Tying together that someone has spoken out on an issue with their identity is a far more dangerous thing if it is the government that is trying to tie it together."

Opsahl also said Kerr ignores the distinction between sacrificing protection from an intrusive government and voluntarily disclosing information in exchange for a service.

"There is something fundamentally different from the government having information about you than private parties," he said. "We shouldn't have to give people the choice between taking advantage of modern communication tools and sacrificing their privacy."

"It's just another 'trust us, we're the government,' " he said.

Or, more properly, Trust Big Brother. Big Brother loves you!

 

Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com

 

Comments

[realpolitic]

Fox News is the Ministry of Truth for the Bush administration. Fox broadcasters tell us repeatedly that any other news organizations can not be trusted. I believe them. They are our friends.

Do not mistake their constant shilling for the Bush agenda as mindless propaganda, they actually believe what they say (which makes it even scarier!)

[The Collinbrandt]

I am The Collinbrandt, the keeper of a place called "Collinbrandt Hill". The ancient red and white pine on this property are dying from global warming (lack of rain in Nothern Michigan). As they die I die and more importantly, a philosophy of good also dies. I feel the pain of my ancestors that fought a revolution against their home world of England. I feel the torture of my ancestors that suffered Nazi type crimes in southern pow camps. The Collinbrandt only wants to be left alone as the guardian of a small forest with subdivisions on all sides but, the evil ones wish to destroy what I have vowed to protect. I am the last of The Collinbrandts and Protector of The Faith.

[realitytrumpsbull]

American 'consumers' don't need rights, they
need a credit line. YOU can be replaced,
'consumer', by a nice mexican family that
will dutifully produce their SEPUs and not
ask questions. Remember, ignorance IS strength,
and the guy in the plastic nazi helmet speaking
that foreign language out in front of city
hall is there for your PROTECTION. He's your
FRIEND! No, really.

We live in Interesting Times, China's coming...

[cognate]

How do you expect to be taken care of by the state if it doesn't know everything about you?

[WASanford]

One of the reasons I"m a "liberal" is that I want my right to be "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures¦" to quote the fourth amendment, recognized and respected. The collection of this information is about¦what? What possible use could they have in mind for its use? Are they planning to use it the way Hitler used IBM's punch card?
The Pentagon has a computer program called "TIA", or total information awareness . I don"t know what information they have on this device, but I can guess. Not too many months ago, Bush made it necessary for persons entering this country to surrender such information as their religion, driver license numbers, credit card numbers, where they bank, and more. I suppose you can feel safe that your government-at-work has all this information secure. But wait, didn"t the Chinese just recently hack into the pentagon"s computers?
It"s bad enough to be spied on by our own government, but it"s worse that the nullification of our fourth amendment rights leaves us open to harassment or worse from them. I don"t want to wait around to find out what they have in store for us. I just want them removed from office now!

[altohone]

Oooh.

There is a dangerous tone in this discussion.

Fans of privacy should be taking up arms against both the government and business for abuses of our privacy.

There is ample evidence that both abuse what they have access too, and that citizens have little recourse when either is less than ethical.

[Newfycrat]

In a way I agree with what he said, but not in a way one might think. We have completely given up our privacy to corporations and for some reason trust them more than the government. I bothers me to no end that when I didn't even tell a family member what my house payment was, strangers were calling me on the phone giving me this information. Our banks sell all our info to anyone they are affiliated with, and a law trying to stop this in California failed. Credit card companies sell our buying information. Advertising companies dump cookies into our computer that track whatever we read. These examples only scratch the surface, but hardly anyone seems bothered by it at all.
In Animals in Translation, author Temple Grandin describes a breed of chickens that while they were bred/selected for bigger breasts, the chickens lost the innate ability to recognize the rooster's mating dance, which resulted in roosters maiming a chickens. It is evolutionarily dysfunctional for roosters to kill chickens rather than breed with them, but people had gotten so used to it they saw this behavior as normal for the breed instead of aberrant behavior.
I do agree that we have slowly given up our right to privacy. I just do not think that, like chicken killing roosters, we should accept it as normal. We need to have more laws to keep our information private from corporations - like a HIPAA law for consumers.

[TRYKER]

A Ministry of Truth in the Bush admin? Hah!

[politigal]

How very frightening these people are- they love banging on the fear drum as they want more & more people to be fearful & accept what they are ramming down our throats.

[IronDragon]

Perhaps a person in the House or Senate will take up pen and paper and write a law about this. We the people don't actually want much, unless greed and vanity set in as personal principles. It would suffice to have a law on the books stating that it would be a totally serious crime if someone uses another's identification to achieve an illegal scheme. If they could find some cops to work on that problem, we would thank them profusely. That guy, Kerr, he talks out the side of his mouth, not unlike G W Bush.

[loslobo]

It amazes me this administration demands transparency from its' citizens while engulfed in the biggest secrecy this country has known.

Anybody find those e-mails yet?

[oldpotsmuggler]

My local paper today quotes Donald Kerr, "the principal deputy director of national intelligence" as saying that privacy can no longer mean anonymity in this country. So, the Bush Administration is now in the dictionary business, I guess, creating its own definitions for words that they want to keep around, but don't like the meaning of. What Mr. Kerr is now advocating is that we establish a system where both business and government gets to have the information about individuals that those entities feel they need, and the privacy comes in in that we are supposed to trust them not to leak. Or maybe only trust them not to leak anyplace that they don't want to leak to. Well, in any event, we can surely have faith that none of our confidential information will be abused. "Abuse of privacy", of course, will now be defined to exclude any use or action by government, because who can we trust if we can't trust the government?

So far BUSHCO has pulled off an eight year coup by election in this country, the election being used strictly for camouflage. It says something that they were able to do it at all, but it also says something that they felt the need to employ such stealth. To move behind the scenes like they do is to move in fear. Fear of us, but the fear is surely diminishing over time, and there can be expected to be a point when they would no longer feel the need to try to hide, and lie, and cheat, and steal to get their way. At some point in the future we can expect the vast BUSHCO team to feel secure enough to just end all subterfuge, to stop even bowing to convention, and to just openly dictate.

The only real antidote is The Second American Constitutional Convention, and it is greatly disheartening to me that even of the vast number of people who can and do still recognize the cancer growing in our body politic, so few understand that there really is only one cure available.

[poppycock]

What a bunch of twaddle Mr. Kerr spews.

BTW Donald is his middle name - his first name is Wayne.

Last time I checked Amazon, Wal-Mart et al weren't intercepting my emails, listening to my phone calls, or opening my mail.

Difference between Washington DC and a village?

A village only has one idiot.