We face a growing assault on our right to privacy online with presumed innocent sharing to friends and family resulting in government surveillance by the NSA, while many persons only see blurred lines when it comes to online privacy violations. As Alessandro Acquisiti points out in his TED Talk, Why Privacy Matters, {LINK} some people don’t care about online privacy as many think they have nothing to hide. I beg to differ. I think most people don’t understand and don’t connect emotionally with online privacy issues. And once more people come to better understand what their online identity means and also connect on an emotional level, many more people will speak out about their right to privacy and against government intrusion.
As a former prosecutor, I often heard victims of burglaries and home invasions speak with outrage about the violation of their privacy when someone came into their homes and took their belongings without their consent. They understood what happened and they wanted action taken. That same sense of knowledge and outrage is what is missing from Internet online privacy invasions and replaced mostly with apathy or lack of knowledge. For many persons, the concept of online privacy is an abstract one that they can’t see, touch, sense, feel or understand. And while some may understand it quite well, those persons often overly intellectualize the privacy issue, so others don’t feel it on an emotional level. We need to understand online privacy issues but also need to emotionally feel the issue as if someone broke into and invaded our homes, pilfered through our stuff and stole all of our belongings.
For the rest of this article, please click and go to Huffington Post Ted Talks where it first appeared on February 6, 2014 as part of a larger conversation on privacy rights, NPR Radio and Ted Talks.
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