I would argue that in many areas, and perhaps overall, privacy has actually
increased over the last few decades in the US. It mostly depends on how you
think about it.

For example, and most fundamentally, until the 1950s there was no legally
recognized "right of privacy." Period. Two major consequences of this were
relatively unrestricted wiretapping powers, and widespread intrusions into
reproductive freedom. In the latter area, it wasn't until Baird (?) v.
Connecticut, which held that a state law outlawing contraceptives to married
couples was unconstitutional, that the Supreme Court first articulated such
a right for the first time. From that came a line of decisions culminating
in Roe V. Wade, the ultimate privacy right case.

On the wiretapping side, it wasn't until Katz v. United States that
wiretapping and other forms of surveillance were understood as an intrusion
into personal privacy, rather than simply as an intrusion into a place. The
consequence in that case was a redefinition, in favor of citizens, of the
requirements for a search warrant.

Of course, in the contemporary scene we are seeing slow but steady progress
made towards repealing sodomy laws, even though the Supreme Court has not
helped in that case. But this, too, is a privacy matter, and the trend is in
the favor of more, not less.

One notes a pattern here too: these are all hot-button right-wing issues.
Indeed, if you pay attention you frequently find reactionaries fulminating
against the idea of a constitutional "right of privacy," which they regard
as a blatant intrusion of judicial authority into the prerogatives of the
state. That alone tells me we are on the right track.

The area where most of the privacy rhetoric is focussed--comsumer profiling
and the like--is largely unimportant, as far as I am concerned. I frankly
don't mind being profiled, because it means I'm more likely to only get junk
mail that has something to do with my interests. But there is nothing wrong
with mandating that consumers have the option of NOT being so profiled.
OTOH, I detest telemarketers, and would love to see legislation making their
jobs as difficult as possible. Finally, there is the whole area of medical
data, which is very serious, especially as financial institutions merge with
insurance companies. The potential for abuse there is serious
(cherry-picking insureds being the obvious one).

But is privacy dead? On the contrary, I think it's doing quite well. And I
think Chomsky might even agree, to the extent that freedom, which he often
argues has increased over the same period, is understood to go hand in hand
with privacy.
--
Tresy Kilbourne
Seattle WA