And setting fires real issue different altogether

86 Why Computer Privacy and Anonymity?

communications. Most of these protection rights have some carefully worded exclusions in the cases of suspected but nebulously defined crimes.

The commercial side asserts sanctimoniously that it is only trying to reduce costs through such practices as knowing everyone’s preferences so that it can send customized advertising most likely to generate revenue.

The libertarian side takes the position that amounts to, in essence, “We trust neither the government nor profit-minded strangers.”
The law enforcement argument can be soothingly sweet to swallow. After all, nobody can credibly take a position against law and order, as doing so evokes images of unshaved savages roaming through the neighborhoods, killing, raping, and setting fires.

2. To a reasonable person, crime is murder, theft, arson, and so forth. To most any government, crime is whatever conduct it does not like. In many countries it is a crime to say something negative about their leaders. In other countries, it is a crime for a teenager to have a copy of Playboy magazine under the mattress. In still other countries, it is a crime to oppose the great leader. As such, it is a very slippery slope when any law enforcement organization makes the claim that it is “only preventing crime” or “only enforcing the law”; it sounds legiti- mate, but is it? The secret police of a totalitarian regime is also “only enforcing the law.”

3. Civilized societies today say, “But we are different; we have laws and courts and due process.” Indeed we do, but so does any totalitar- ian regime. The catch is that totalitarian regimes (and even their respective constitutions, if they have one, guarantee all sorts of individual rights “except as authorized by a lawful ... (any proper-sounding verbiage can go here)...,” which means that all such “rights” are the discretion of the government representative who may want to take them away as he or she sees fit.

Technology that makes surveillance extremely easy is here, and there is a lot more coming:

◗ There will be a GPS receiver in every car and in every watch, and soon there will be a chip that could be implanted in individuals.