Saturday, March 28, 2009

Privacy in the 21st century

As any good constitutional scholar knows, whether the government is "searching" you depends on whether you have an "expectation of privacy". The problem with this legal concept is that as new technology has emerged, no one has an expectation of privacy anymore.

Bruce Schneier writes about the need for a new legal concept of privacy. He cites three different law professors who agree with the diagnosis, but have very different solutions to the problem.

It's an interesting problem. I expect my phone calls and emails to be private. But at the same time, I expect the government (at least between 2001 and 2009) to be listening to my phone calls and reading my email. I don't think it's RIGHT, and I think it should continue to be illegal. But new technology makes our expectations change.

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