Can We Get A Little Privacy Here?

One of the basic tenets of American society is the right to privacy. Or at least, it used to be. With advances in technology though, it seems as if privacy is a passé idea in an information age where every transaction is digitally stored, every report is saved in bits and bytes, every communication traceable. But as human beings are inherently social creatures, needing of companionship in one form or another, so too do we need moments of privacy, away from the watchful eyes and ears of others. It is in these times that we have the occasion to contemplate or relax or be carefree. All of deserve these moments of privacy, whether alone or with our families, even public figures. For even in our faster paced and over-scheduled society, we still find moments to steal away from the rush and enjoy some quiet timeand family vacations away from our daily lives, unfettered by physical intrusions .

But the subject of this essay is the assault on our private information by government agencies and private businesses and identity thieves. Today’s privacy concerns involve the thousands of pieces of information about who you are, what you like, and what you buy, pieces that are collected and sold to the highest bidder so that they can market their wares to you and get a pretty good return on their advertising dollar. Today’s concerns involve the slip-shod way in which this information is collected and protected, allowing thieves to hijack a person’s entire digital identity and bleed it dry. So while it would be nice to have people take their phone calls out of the restaurants and into their homes, our privacy concerns today are of this other nature.

A quick internet search with the phrase “privacy rights” reveals the varied nature of the whole privacy concept. Instantly, one finds links to Consumer Privacy Rights, Health Information Privacy Rights, Educational Privacy Rights and even ways to protect my privacy in the digital age. It becomes clear that we have parsed the definition of privacy into an almost meaningless concept, for if we need rules to cover all these different aspects of “privacy” then we must assume that anything not specifically covered by a named “right” is either to be considered public or at least non-private. So to begin with, let’s get back to the most basic definition of privacy, which says that privacy is the condition of being secluded from the presence or view of others or the state of being free from unsanctioned intrusion. That’s pretty simple, isn’t it?

But when dealing with information, what constitutes privacy? And who, if anyone has the right to encroach upon that privacy? These are important questions to answer because as the world becomes more and more interconnected through technology, the amount of privacy we are afforded becomes smaller and smaller. And in times of political upheaval, one of the first things that we lose is our unfettered right to privacy from the government’s watchful eye, often under the guise of security.

What Should Be Private? Information collected by the government should always be considered private information and should not be allowed to be sold to or shared with any agency other than the one it was originally given to. This includes your name, age, address, contact numbers, health status, and any personal business between you and the government like taxes or financial status. This same provision should prohibit medical care providers, insurance underwriters, employers, banks, credit bureaus, and anybody you do business with from sharing or selling your information too. Rather than forcing people to opt out through a purposely arduous process, the standard operating procedure should be for people to opt-in. These days, privacy is becoming something you have to ask for, instead of being something presumed, and frankly that’s just backwards.

In addition to being responsible for keeping your information private, collectors of information must take more active steps in safeguarding the information that they do collect with your knowledge. The simplest way to ensure this is through a kind of “safe deposit box” mechanism, or something with two “keys” for access. In the digital age, this could be done rather simply with RFID chips or something similar. The information would always be encrypted and access would require both chips to be scanned or read before any information could be released. This would have the added benefit of ensuring that any individual records released would be done only with the knowledge of the individual herself.

The fact of the matter is that so much information exists on each and every one of us in the databanks of corporations and schools and hospitals and government records. The information is already there. We just need to protect it better.

What Isn’t Private? Unlike individuals, businesses and government activities don’t have the rights to private information, at least not in the same way individuals do, or at least they shouldn’t. Except for the private information of employees, and of course proprietary information integral to their businesses continued success, corporations should not be able to hide their financial operations or any legal actions against them by the government or private lawsuits. Government should not have the privilege of privacy in any actions involving public domestic policy or the expenditure of tax dollars. Nor should they expect privacy in matters of legislation or their own financial dealings. The reasoning behind this is simple: government exists to serve the people, and an accountable government does not conceal its actions. Similarly, a corporation provides products and services to the general public who has a right to know who they are dealing with and what they are getting. Only in matters of investigations of wrongdoing should a level of privacy exist.

For individuals, any record of public or military service would not be considered private, nor would any criminal convictions or public lawsuits be considered private matters, at least not from a protected standpoint. Another individual could access that information for general informational or educational purposes.

Need To Know Basis Personal information should be acquired only on a need to know basis. Both government and business have entered an age when information can be collected quickly and acted upon rapidly before its been analyzed properly, and both have a tendency to do just that. Both should be held responsible, financially and punitively for any unauthorized release of private personal information. If companies know they can be fined and if bureaucrats know they can be fired for letting information get into the wrong hands, we would probably see the numbers of identity theft diminish and the practice of personal smear campaigns. On the other hand, legitimate government investigations need to be able to share their information more easily, and if they have obtained a proper court order, information could be collected without individual authorization. The caveat would be that any release of that information not associated with the investigation or information improperly obtained would result in the dismissal of those responsible. In truth, there is very little need for all our information being zapped around in cyberspace, other than the trade of it creates money for everyone except the individual whose information is being bought and sold.

Privacy does require vigilance by the individual, but with the laws today, even the most vigilant consumer couldn’t keep tabs on all of his information, nor could he prevent its release. Not only does this invite identity theft, which wreaks havoc on personal and public finances, it also invites government intrusion, especially when anti-leaders who tolerate no serious, vocal dissent are running the government. Like so many things, the loss of our privacy has been given away as much as it has been stolen. But it is not to late to reverse the trend.

Quid Pro Quo

You’ve probably heard the expression “Quid Pro Quo” before. It means “an equal exchange.” Another way to say this is “You get what you pay for.” Whatever your phraseology, the concept is pretty simple. For any thing you want, you must have something to exchange for it. This concept is the basis for our entire social structure and is manifested in many ways, from the exchange of our talents and time for money to the exchange of our money for food, shelter, and all the other things in life we buy. Determining the value of the exchange is important, and in our capitalistic economic system, the concept of supply and demand play a big role in determining the worth of things and talent. But the topic of this essay is not economics. There is another way to express the sentiment of quid pro quo, and that is “You get what you give.” It is this definition, and it’s association to our democratic government, that interests me.

If you believe the polls and the opinion editorials and the general grumbling of the people on the street, you might infer that Americans are growing increasingly unhappy with the quality of service they are receiving from their government, a government that is supposedly elected to respond to their concerns as a whole, and not just a government that works for the interests of the select or noisiest few. We complain about leniency for violent criminals and revolving prison doors. We decry the complexity and snail’s pace of the legal system, both criminal and civil. We constantly tirade at the state of our educational system, our medical system, or our retirement system. We shake our heads in disgust at the corruption uncovered almost daily among the political leadership in our cities and states and national levels of government. But when the jury summons arrives in the mailbox, our first thought is finding a way to get excused. When our children fail to pass skills tests or need remedial classes to get into community colleges, we find a teacher or program to blame instead of stepping in to help our kids learn. And when our politicians are out of touch or just plain stupid, we re-elect them based on a party affiliation instead of looking for a viable alternative. Even when they are indicted for corruption, we look to their contemporaries to fill their shoes, letting the shady deals pick up as if nothing had ever changed. In increasing numbers, we aren’t even voting at all. Quid pro quo. You get what you give. If we’re as unhappy as we proclaim to be, if we’re as dissatisfied and disgusted as we profess to be, why aren’t we giving more so that we can get a better product?

Part of the problem is the growing feeling among average people that the whole political process is too corrupt to change and that nothing we could do or say will make a difference. This feeling of hopelessness is neither accurate nor acceptable if we are to revive true self-government and restore democratic values to our political system. The fact is that at least 40% and upwards of 80% of eligible voters do not participate in local, state, or federal elections. In Fixing The Vote, Parts One and Two, I explored the reasons for this dilemma and offered some viable solutions to help turn this trend around. But an even bigger part of the solution lies in changing our own attitudes and deciding to get back in the game. Hopelessness is not accurate because if all of those unheard voices would let themselves be heard, then hope could transcend into reality through the election of real people-oriented representatives instead of the paid for politicians we have now. Hopelessness is not acceptable because to abandon the process is to give it to the corrupt corporations and their political hacks, in effect handing them the key to our public assets and turning our backs as they plunder the safe. If change is what you want, then you must let it be known. Find a candidate you can support and get the silent majority to actually turn out and back your choice instead of settling for the party’s anointed golden child of the season or forgoing the vote altogether.

Do you want a representative who spends his or her time cuddling up to big money donors instead of working on the public problems? Do you want to continue to pay taxes to support an over-bloated bureaucracy that fumbles the future integrity of our educational, medical, and retirement systems? Do you want a politician who would give away your public lands and funds so that they can be exploited by billion dollar corporations or shut down entirely by special interest demands? If your answer is “Hell No!” then you must give more than lip service. You must get more involved. You must vote. Otherwise, you might just as well keep your gripes to yourself.

It may seem simplistic to continually return to the importance of voting and its ability to create reform, but as with many things in life, simple is the way to go. And truth be told, while the act of voting is among the most important tools we have for reform, it is also the least imposing form of action imaginable. It takes mere minutes (especially if you get an absentee ballot sent to you) in many cases, and in places where the lines to the polls are longer, demand for and volunteer to staff more polling centers. As registration increases with a renewed realization of the empowerment that voting can bring, election officials will be forced to open more polling centers. If they follow the model set by Starbucks (a shop on every corner, because waiting more than a few minutes is too long to wait), voting could be as easy as drive-thru service. If you want people you can trust in office, you’ve got to put them there. Quid pro quo.

Increasing the vote is the first big step, and also the easiest, at least it should be. Beyond that, levels of involvement become more time consuming, but also more important as they relate to oversight and holding elected officials accountable for their actions on our behalf. We must be willing to join local citizen panels and school associations and public information committees. We must be willing to support honest attempts at reform as vociferously as we now bemoan the idiocy that passes for judicious public stewardship. We must eliminate government excess and corruption to retain our freedoms while reforming government efficiency to sustain our future. We must stop being silent.

With the active participants of democracy already in the fray, and getting nowhere but deeper in the morass of corruption and stagnancy, the ability of this country to move to a viable Common Sense position has been reduced. It has been stealthily subverted by the corporate interests and destructive forces of distorted religious ideologies and selfish attitudes of elected officials and fringe, self-serving positions of far right and far left special interest groups. You get what you give, and when you give less and less, someone else will try to fill that gap. In American politics, average citizens have been letting someone else dictate what they should think or support because they won’t speak for themselves. Are you one of those people? If you are, the future of change really rests in your hands.