Personal essays
On watching an important right dissolve.
Sam
There’s an episode of the West Wing from 1999 in which the staff is vetting candidates for an open seat on the Supreme Court.
The episode contains an argument about whether or not the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to privacy.
Certain privacy related rights are guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.
The candidate, who stands in for actual justices and their position, argues that these enumerated rights indicate that the founders could have included privacy if they’d seen it as essential.
This is a classic Sorkin straw man set up so that Sam can knock it down.
It’s the rest of Sam’s speech that sticks with me.
“It’s about the next twenty years. The 20’s and 30’s it was about the role of government. The 50’s and 60’s it was about civil rights. The next two decades are going to be privacy. I’m talking about the internet, talking about cell phones, talking about health records, and who’s gay and who’s not.”
Privacy.
Safety
I was thinking about that speech after Apple’s WorldWide Developers Conference (WWDC) last week.
Apple talked a lot about privacy during the keynote.
They stressed the importance of privacy when it comes to your data and gave examples of how they continue to address the challenges in their AI efforts and in ensuring kid safety.
In fact, Apple has been talking about privacy in their keynotes and other presentations for more than twenty years.
I’m always surprised how little that matters to investors or the general public.
Maybe I worry more than I should.
After all, with 300+ issues of this newsletter out, a very bored and unambitious AI agent could be trained on this and know quite a bit about me.
But each week I make the decision to write this and to press “Send”.
That’s not the sort of privacy I worry about.
Even though we reveal more of us than we should in social media posts, these reveals may be ill-advised but they’re voluntary.
Your face
We used to go with my father-in-law to the horse track. He worked security there and brought us along for a nice brunch now and then.
These were the days before cell phones - I have no idea what it would be like now - but then, you weren’t allowed to use a camera to take pictures.
The track protected the privacy of people who came out to place a bet or watch a race.
Now there are cameras everywhere.
I now board a plane and walk through passport control just by looking at a camera.
I worry about the many times a day we share our image or other forms of identifying information because it makes a transaction easier.
I worry about the many times a day we share these things because it makes a transaction possible. Why does this company need this piece of information from me - for my convenience.
In a recent episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out, it was reported that Madison Square Garden and other Dolan properties use facial recognition to keep people out of their venues.
These aren’t terrorists or dangerous people. They famously kicked out a mom who was chaperoning a group of Girl Scouts to see a show at Radio City Music Hall. The woman works as an attorney for a law firm that has sued one of Dolan’s companies and so all of the employees are on a list of people banned from any Dolan property.
Essential
I know there’s nothing in the Constitution that gives me the right to attend a show at Radio City Music Hall or the Sphere or a Knicks game. But something feels off.
I’ll grant you that Siri has been bad a long time and could have and should have been better (this is the year - they tell me).
But I really like the design that keeps my information and queries on the device I’m holding. I don’t need to worry about who will see the query or response whizzing by on its way to or from the internet.
This year Apple talked about continuing to put an emphasis on privacy.
And their stock went down.
I don’t know why this isn’t seen as essential and something we want from these devices we expose to the most intimate aspects of our lives.
The “next twenty years” from Sam’s speech covered the past two decades.
If anything, our need for privacy protections has gotten greater not less.
Essay from Dim Sum Thinking Newsletter 325. Read the rest of the Newsletter or subscribe