Simson Garfinkel

In the following viewpoint, Simson Garfinkel contends that the Information Revolution has led to a decrease in privacy. According to Garfinkel, websites and other new technologies collect personal data from consumers without ensuring that the information will remain private. Garfinkel asserts that the benefits of technology do not offset this loss of privacy. He concludes that consumers and the government must make concerted efforts, such as establishing a privacy- protection agency, to ensure that one of America’s most important freedoms—the right to privacy—is not destroyed. Garfinkel is a columnist for the Boston Globe and the author of Database Nation: The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century, from which the following viewpoint has been adapted.

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