Invasion of the Data Snatchers

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[Commentary] When it comes to privacy, we are all hypocrites.

We howl when a newspaper publishes public records about personal behavior. At the same time, we are acquiescing in a much more sweeping erosion of our privacy — government surveillance, corporate data-mining, political microtargeting, hacker invasions — with no comparable outpouring of protest. As a society we have no coherent view of what information is worth defending and how to defend it. When our privacy is invaded in the name of national security, we — and our elected representatives, afraid to be thought soft — generally go along quietly. Our complacency is reinforced by a popular culture that has forsaken Orwell’s nightmares for a benign view of authority. In many of my own guilty-pleasure television favorites — “The Wire,” the British thriller series “MI-5,” the Danish original of “The Killing,” the addictive “Homeland” — surveillance is what the good guys do, and it saves the day. Meanwhile, as Al Qaeda wanes, our surveillance state continues to grow more intrusive, with woefully little oversight or accountability.


Invasion of the Data Snatchers