Wired commentary: Security vs. Privacy - A False Dichotomy. [via]

The article is chock full of great links to other excellent reads. Check out Bruce Schneier’s website here.

Thinking back to one of the early Democratic presidential debates, the candidates discussed this in a round-about way. They were asked point-blank if security takes priority over human rights. Only Kucinich and Richardson said, “no.” The rest (including Mrs. Clinton) said, “yes.” The only exception was Obama, who’s half-assed assertion that they are not mutually exclusive (the point of the above commentary) sounded more like a side-stepping of the question than a reasoned and progressive answer.

That raises the question: is privacy a human right? We here at sd&if would argue, “yes.” We would also point to James Moor’s “Towards a Theory of Privacy for the Information Age.”* Moor argues that, in an information saturated society, privacy should be viewed as an extension of security, which most people would agree is certainly a human right. In Moor’s framework, privacy and security go hand in hand; they certainly are not mutually exclusive.

*Moor, J. (1997). Towards a theory of privacy for the information age. Computers and Society, 27(3). 27-32.