Simply because he signed up at a bridal registry that had a Web site, Philip Reitinger discovered anyone would be able to go online and find out his wife’s name and the type of china he ordered.
“Everything you do can be watched,” cautioned Reitinger, a U.S. Justice Department official, speaking on privacy rights and the role of the media Friday.
Reitinger was one of 12 speakers who gathered for a two-day symposium called “Privacy in the System of Free Expression,” held jointly by the Medill School of Journalism, the Law School and the School of Speech.
At the symposium, journalism and law professors discussed how the right to privacy is being affected by technology and the media.
Media and law experts agreed that new Internet technology and increased access to information are changing the face of privacy issues.
“The Internet breaks down all barriers to protect our privacy,” Reitinger said. “Go stalk yourself one day. You will be shocked at the information you can find out.”
People want more privacy protection because they sense a loss of control, Reitinger said.
In a presentation about current and future technological capabilities, commentator Adam Clayton Powell III demonstrated exactly how much information the ordinary person can obtain by using the Internet.
“Imagery available a year ago only to intelligence agencies is now online,” he said.
Using relatively inexpensive satellite imagery, people can have access to images of anything on the earth, Powell said, citing an Internet picture of Leonardo DiCaprio’s backyard as an example.
Anita Allen, a law and philosophy professor at the University of Pennsylvania, talked about the ethics of journalism, which she said “place the right to know and privacy on a seesaw.”
“There are practical difficulties in trying to protect privacy,” she said.
She agreed with ethics codes that protected privacy wherever possible, rather than ones that emphasized information-gathering above all else.
However, some people have idiosyncratic and peculiar privacy needs, Allen said. If a woman chooses to deliver a baby live over the Internet, it is her choice, she said.
“In an age of the Internet, cell phones and Web cameras, it is hard to know what people consider private anymore,” Allen said.
Yet many citizens are arguing for more privacy and less public access to information and records, said Jane Kirtley, a journalism professor at the University of Minnesota.
As technology facilitates the invasion of privacy, both citizens’ claims and legal rulings are defending privacy, Kirtley said.
“The future of access to personal databases is not very rosy,” she said. “If you are a privacy advocate, you will be happy.”
Commentator Fred Schauer, a dean and professor at Harvard University, said citizens worry less about public agencies like the Internal Revenue Service and fret more about private institutions knowing their records.
“I am not surprised that courts are giving deference to well-meaning government attempts to protect the privacy of its citizens,” he said.
To avoid these threats to privacy, people are taking technical countermeasures, such as using anonymous mailer services and networks that hide Web browsing, Reitinger said.
Yet despite legal action and preventative measures, there is still an abundance of information that is easily available.
The Internet is threatening because it is all-empowering, Reitinger said.
“And anyone who has power can abuse power,” he added.
