by Amitai Etzioni

About the author: Amitai Etzioni is the author of The Limits of Privacy and teaches at George Washington University.

[As of September 2001] members of Congress are returning to Capitol Hill, having assessed what’s on voters’ minds. They may have found that privacy ranks much lower among the public’s concerns than the chattering classes report. And for good reasons.

Commentators have kept up a drumbeat about ever-rising threats to privacy. In Tampa, Florida, the police are reported to feed mug shots of crime suspects into computers connected to cameras that scan the faces of people in the street. Dick Armey, House majority leader, railed against cameras introduced to catch red-light runners. New police flashlights measure the alcohol on one’s breath. New software from Microsoft and AOL is said...