Privacy

Our culture is roiled by assassinations and mindless mass shootings. A cry goes out to “do something”. But what? There are only a few options. Greater limitations, higher protection, or decreased privacy .

In the US, greater limitations are difficult. Everyone wants access to guns – often the biggest baddest guns that exist. Locking potential perpetrators up hardly addresses the problem, since that only addresses low-level “gang violence” where adolescents mostly shoot each other. Higher protection – a security officer everywhere, domes of bulletproof glass for speakers _ is extremely expensive and often impossible .

And that leaves surveillance. Already video footage is so ubiquitous, cell phone records so complete, that those who assassinate are always caught. Most of them know it and embark on suicide missions, almost impossible to guard against .

No doubt, as in China, we will be willing to sacrifice more and more privacy for greater security. Online and in public, all will be known, evaluated, stored, and used for prediction and “interdiction” of potential terrorists. Most of us will welcome the calm .

But such a blessing can easily become a curse, and I foresee no way of preventing that from happening .