Page 13 - Privacy in a Cyber Age Policy and Practice

xii PREFACE

which one finds that NSA programs actually violate privacy (e.g., Do they
actually examine the content of messages, or only the metadata, and does
the NSA shadow only foreigners and their American agents or keep a tab
on millions of innocent Americans?); and the extent to which these pro-
grams are subject to close oversight, and by whom.
By contrast, the study of the increasing use of forensic DNA profiles
by law enforcement authorities makes for a very unusual case study of the
balance between the common good and individual rights, particularly pri-
vacy. We shall see that not only are the concerns raised about the threat
DNA profiles pose to privacy mainly based on misunderstandings (e.g.,
confusing samples with profiles) and overstated, but also that DNA profil-
ing makes very important contributions to both public safety and a most
fundamental individual right.
Privacy is not dead, and it should not be allowed to die. To protect it
from all those who would violate it, whether they are government agents
or private corporations, we must focus our analysis and new tools (e.g.,
computerized audit trails) on protecting privacy instead of allowing it to
be further undermined. To proceed, though, we must simultaneously take
into account the need to serve the common good. This book seeks to stim-
ulate a dialogue that will lead to new shared moral understandings and
legal, political, and social expressions of the same in order to cope with this
age-old issue in a new age: the cyber age.

A.E.
December 2014
Washington, DC