Privacy without anonymity?

So by now, anyone who cares has no doubt heard about the comments from Donald Kerr, deputy director of national intelligence. His claim is that nowadays, the American public has no choice but to abandon the idea of anonymity, and instead simply place their faith in the government and corporations to handle their private data properly.

Give me a break! If there's a more classic example of the foxes guarding the henhouse that doesn't involve an actual farm, I certainly can't think of it.

Let's ignore for a moment the fact that so far, these foxes have proved to be horribly incapable of properly handling data. Forget for a moment that from Choicepoint selling data to thieves, to TJX utterly failing to secure their own systems, to the countless laptops and backup tapes lost or stolen, the IT industry as a whole has not given consumers much reason to sleep soundly.

An essential aspect of free speech is the ability to speak your mind without fear of reprisal. While it's a wonderful ideal to be able to simply declare you can't be punished for speaking something unpopular, the harsh reality is that sometimes it can't be avoided. Look, for example, at the whistle blower protection laws. The fact that you can report illegal activities that a company you work for without that company knowing you did the reporting is absolutely essential. Would you turn if your boss if it was going to be months or years before results happened, and he would know what you did?

Kerr's statement is the worst kind of lie - one hidden in the middle of a bundle of truths. Do we all need to adjust our expectations and behavior regarding privacy in the age of Google? Clearly. Should people be able to expect that their government and companies will take care of their data properly? Absolutely.

But to suggest that these are an acceptable substitute for anonymity is both foolish and dangerous.