Sunday, March 16, 2008

The value of privacy

If everyone could suddenly read everyone else's thoughts then very few people would survive the subsequent massacre

The above quote is from a truly excellent article by my old mucker Clive James that I came across on the BBC website this morning. I'm not one for lamenting the state of society on my blog very often - I tend to leave that to my dear friend Silas, as he's far better at it than me - and I can't hope to better Clive's turn of phrase, so I shall instead leave you to read the words of another that happen to mirror my own thoughts.

1 comment:

silas said...

Thanks for the hat tip Mia, very kind.

I've just commented on that Clive James piece. Not sure if it's going to get published, so here's what I wrote to him:

"Email, and letters if we're totally honest about the intentions of the security services, should be considered as postcards. Unless you're using a rather splendid method of encryption. Although using encryption does tend to raise suspicion amongst the security services.

We are very much more observed than people realise. Particularly when the security services are now asking permission to data mine the Oyster card system, rather than establish someone as a suspect first.

As has been said by many people recently, politicians - among others - seem to forget that 1984 was written as a warning, not an instruction manual."