For a piece that goes deep into the nuances of terminology I feel it is missing substantial broader context relevant for the digital privacy debate: Digital privacy is not a peculiarly US need, nor is it confined to the citizen-state information flows.
Social organization in modern times (as seen across the planet) has created three "attractors" through which human agency primarily expresses itself: the individual/household, the (large) commercial entity and the state in its various forms. Of-course only the first type is "real", corporations and governments are legal abstractions representing the interests of various subsets of individuals. Further, the state, despite being a virtual construct, usually has ultimate power to enforce the will of whichever subset it represents.
The dramatic challenge of digital privacy is that it applies to every possible pair (e.g. person-to-person, state-to-corporate, corporate-to-corporate, state-to-state etc.) and in all possible governance circumstances (e.g. failed state, captured (oligarchic) state, warring states etc.) not just conditioning on benign scenarios.
Discussing digital privacy and rational, human-centric designs of digital society cannot ignore these interconnected elements. E.g. corporate surveillance and state surveillance are obviously deeply linked. Social technologies (of which digital information technology is part of) should aim to remove the likelihood and severity of human-inflicted disasters. 16 years after this piece and 7 years after Shoshana Zuboff's Surveillance Capitalism we are nowhere close to a more serious discussion (let alone action) about the kind of digital societies we are drifting into and what kind of risks are brewing.
The control of digital information flow concerning individuals and groups of individuals is at the very center of societal organization. The challenge is not just generational, its epochal. And it is getting worse, with every piece of code that interjects itself in these information flows.
Our era is crying out for exceptional intellectual and moral leadership that will construct the canvas on which a good digital society can thrive. Unfortunately, for now at least, not many are listening.
Social organization in modern times (as seen across the planet) has created three "attractors" through which human agency primarily expresses itself: the individual/household, the (large) commercial entity and the state in its various forms. Of-course only the first type is "real", corporations and governments are legal abstractions representing the interests of various subsets of individuals. Further, the state, despite being a virtual construct, usually has ultimate power to enforce the will of whichever subset it represents.
The dramatic challenge of digital privacy is that it applies to every possible pair (e.g. person-to-person, state-to-corporate, corporate-to-corporate, state-to-state etc.) and in all possible governance circumstances (e.g. failed state, captured (oligarchic) state, warring states etc.) not just conditioning on benign scenarios.
Discussing digital privacy and rational, human-centric designs of digital society cannot ignore these interconnected elements. E.g. corporate surveillance and state surveillance are obviously deeply linked. Social technologies (of which digital information technology is part of) should aim to remove the likelihood and severity of human-inflicted disasters. 16 years after this piece and 7 years after Shoshana Zuboff's Surveillance Capitalism we are nowhere close to a more serious discussion (let alone action) about the kind of digital societies we are drifting into and what kind of risks are brewing.
The control of digital information flow concerning individuals and groups of individuals is at the very center of societal organization. The challenge is not just generational, its epochal. And it is getting worse, with every piece of code that interjects itself in these information flows.
Our era is crying out for exceptional intellectual and moral leadership that will construct the canvas on which a good digital society can thrive. Unfortunately, for now at least, not many are listening.