The Eternal Value of Privacy

Be sure to read computer security guru Bruce Schneier’s essay, The Eternal Value of Privacy. In it, he takes apart the old canard that goes “If you’re doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide” currently being peddled by some bureaucrats in this age of the PATRIOT Act.

The haert of the essay an idea best expressed by Cardinal Richelieu’s famous line: “If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged.” Schneier argues that the debate about surveillance isn’t about “security versus privacy”, but about “liberty versus control”.