DESCRIPTION

Privacy is about context and boundaries. We set some of our most important personal boundaries when we decide whether to share information about ourselves and how much information we are willing to share with certain people. Secret surveillance directly breaches those boundaries. Large-scale data collection evades and circumvents boundaries we create by combining and consolidating information we originally agreed to disclose only in isolated pieces and to specific sources.

Even when surveillance is conducted in the open, it can violate our personal boundaries. Over time, and as surveillance becomes more ubiquitous, the effects of losing control over our ability to manage our privacy may cause us to change our behavior, make different choices, and take fewer risks. That makes our lives less free and our society less dynamic.

For most people, the perception that the government is watching causes suspicion, anxiety, embarrassment, and sometimes, even fear. The degree of unease may be different for different people and different situations. But surveillance creates a power imbalance between the watcher and the watched. That feeling of vulnerability – the sense that others can intrude upon  our boundaries with impunity – breeds conformity and sows social distrust.