WESTMINSTER-When, exactly, was privacy in America perverted into an increasingly unattainable and meaningless concept? Did it vanish with the 20th century? Did it go away when the internet and digital tech culture infiltrated our sacred spaces?
I remember Robert Bork's Supreme Court confirmation hearing, when he said that there was no Constitutional right to privacy. He was not confirmed largely because of that statement.
How prophetic and true that statement was, and it is even more true today in 2024 than it was in 1987.
I think it is obvious, at least to people of a certain age, that privacy is dead in the United States. Today I received yet another letter from a company I did not recognize telling me that my "information" had been compromised by a "data breach."
I now have a folder that contains five such letters. They always start with some kind of boilerplate verbiage telling the recipient how sorry the sender is that their information was stolen by a cybercriminal. They assure you that they are strengthening their cybersecurity to protect your privacy, then they go on to explain what you can do to try to protect yourself from the consequences of this data breach.
Why is the onus on the innocent citizen? The person whose privacy was breached?
Why do we, as victims of a possible calamity not of our creation, have to spend what could be hours, days, or even weeks or months stressing out about possible theft of our personhood or financial ruin?
How in the world is this kind of nightmare scenario, this Kafkaesque reality, something that people want to live with? Why is it accepted as a normal aspect of life in our brave new digital world?
Why are these obscure "affiliates" of companies we must do business with allowed to build dossiers on millions of Americans that they cannot protect and cannot keep secure?
How is it that they get away with this practice, why is it even legal, and why are there no consequences for them when they lose the information they collect?
They simply send a form letter to people when the inevitable breach occurs.
Like Elayne Clift, I am mad as hell at the system that has grown up around our out-of-control tech culture, a system, embraced by capitalism, that places profits before people. A system that fosters insecurity and stress among the populace but that makes money for corporate America.
Is there no end to how far into our pockets and private lives greed and thoughtlessness will reach? I am afraid that this is just the beginning of a new tech-generated dystopian world.
Philip Odegard
Westminster
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