The Economist Debates

As data mining systems sophisticate, the protective walls guarding personal information privacy are becoming progressively more porous. Often, this is done in the name of security. One position states that assuring the security of a citizenry requires the loss of some personal privacy. Critics argue that the two are not inexorably linked but rather governments and corporations are excusing security as a means to gain greater degrees of personal information.
Proposer: Mr Neil C Livingstone Believes that assuring the security of a citizenry requires the loss of some personal privacy

The great novelist John Steinbeck once observed, "We spend our time searching for security, and hate it when we get it."1 Thus is our conundrum in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington which traumatised this nation and many of our friends and allies around the globe. Today we face unprecedented security risks to our lives and the fragile infrastructures we depend on to sustain our livelihoods and well-being. Our enemies are far more sophisticated than the stereotype of a bearded jihadist toting an AK-47 hunkered down in the mountains of Pakistan or Afghanistan, an illiterate and superstitious Luddite eager to impose the nostrums and doctrines of the 7th century on the modern world. In reality, many jihadists are technologically sophisticated and linked together by the Internet, which they use to download information on our vulnerabilities and assist them in the design and construction of explosive devices and even chemical, biological and radiological weapons. And, as a Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report directed by former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn concluded, "It is not a matter of 'if' but rather 'when' such an event [chem, bio, or nuclear] will occur." In response to this very real and ongoing threat, the US government has