Can the government stick us with privacy
we don't want? It can, it does, and according to this author, may need to do
more of it. Privacy is a foundational good, she argues, a necessary tool in the
liberty-lover's kit for a successful life. A nation committed to personal
freedom must be prepared to mandate inalienable, liberty-promoting privacies for
its people, whether they eagerly embrace them or not. The eight chapters of this
book are reflections on public regulation of privacy at home; isolation and
confinement for punitive and health reasons; religious modesty attire; erotic
nudity; workplace and professional confidentiality; racial privacy; online
transactions; social networking; and the collection, use and storage of
electronic data. Most books about privacy law focus on rules designed to protect
popular forms of privacy. Popular privacy is the kind that people tend to want,
believe they have a right to, and expect governments to secure. Typical North
Americans and Europeans embrace privacy for home-life, telephone calls, e-mail,
health records, and financial transactions. This unique book draws attention to
unpopular privacy-- privacies disvalued or disliked by their intended
beneficiaries and targets-and the best reasons for imposing them. Examples of
unwanted physical and informational privacies with which contemporary Americans
have already lived? Start with laws designed to keep website operators from
collecting personal information from children under 13 without parental consent;
the anti-nudity laws that force strippers to wear pasties and thongs; the 'Don't
Ask Don't Tell' rules that kept gays out of the US military; and the myriad
employee and professional confidentiality rules-- including insider trading
laws-- that require strict silence about matters whose disclosure could earn us
small fortunes. Conservative and progressive liberals agree that coercion and
paternalism should be the exceptions rather than the rule. Better to educate,
incentivize and nudge than to force. But what if people continue to make
self-defeating bad choices? What are the exceptional circumstances that warrant
coercion, and in particular, coercing privacy? When can government turn
privacies into duties, especially duties of self-care? Early modern societies
went wrong, imposing unequal conditions of forced modesty and confinement on
women and others groups, giving privacy and imposed privacies a bad rap. But now
may be a time for imposed privacies of another sort-imposed privacies that are
liberating rather than dominating. A role for coercive and paternalistic
regulation may be called for in view of the Great Privacy Give-Away. The public
turns over vast amounts of personal information in exchange for the ease of
online shopping, browsing and social networking, protected in some instances by
little more than a pro forma privacy policy pasted on a home page. The public
uploads and stores information 'in the cloud,' and have become more and more
dependent upon electronic telecommunications and personal archiving exposed to
public and private surveillance. Have they lost the taste for privacy? Do they
fail to understand the implications of what is happening? This book offers
insight into the ethical and political underpinnings of public policies
mandating privacies that people may be indifferent to or despise. Privacy
institutions and practices play a role in sustaining the capable free-agents
presupposed by liberal democracy. Physical sanctuaries and data protection by
law confers and preserve opportunities for making and acting on choices.
Imposing privacy recognizes the extraordinary importance of dignity, reputation,
confidential relationships, and preserving social, economic and political
options throughout a lifetime.
