Abstracting Privacy (contd.)

Perhaps the mere illusion of privacy is sufficient to put some Americans’ minds at ease. In our post-911 world we seem to have been especially eager to sacrifice civil rights and civil liberties in exchange for guarantees against terrorist acts in the future. We are for the most part willing, for example, to disrobe in airport security lines because we’re given to understand that such scrutiny reduces the chances of a would-be terrorist smuggling a firearm, an edged weapon or a foundation-garment explosive device aboard the aircraft.

Public opinion is considerably more mixed on the issue of electronic surveillance, warrantless wiretaps, etc., than government officials and security experts would have us believe. But whatever unease exists is apparently easily overwhelmed by the imperatives of communicating with each other across time zones, continents and oceans in a timely manner.

Given the aggressive, open-ended nature of the national security/counter-terrorism apparatus — an expression of what historian, author and retired career Army officer Andrew Bacevich calls the “national security state” — it is perhaps understandable that its less visible iterations would be regarded with the kind of insouciance that can apparently cause people to forget altogether that an electronic communication always — always — leaves a trail. Or that striking the “Delete” key doesn’t remove all instances of an email or text. Former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, for instance, was removed from office and ultimately served jail time because he seemed not to understand this simple but apparently elusive truth.

Further, if human nature and the history of statecraft remain true to form, there is the promise (or omen) of even less respect for privacy in the future. At one time not so long ago, airport security consisted primarily of being scanned with a hand-held metal detector. The current state of the art is a full body scanner that many Americans — women especially — regard as a totally unjustifiable invasion of privacy. Yet we continue to fly.