notes on privacy

1. ... Scott McNealy, the chief executive officer of Sun Microsystems, was asked whether privacy safeguards had been built into a new computer-networking system that Sun had just released. McNealy responded that consumer-privacy issues were nothing but a 'red herring,' and went on to make a remark that still resonates. 'You have zero privacy anyway,' he snapped. 'Get over it.'

— Toby Lester, "The Reinvention of Privacy", The Atlantic Monthly, March 2001.

2. The problems with this word 'privacy' is that it falls short of conveying the really big picture. Privacy isn't just about hiding things. It's about self-possession, autonomy, and integrity.

— Simson Garfinkel, Database Nation, O'Reilly, 2000, p. 4.