Page 1126 - Wordsmith A Guide to College Writing

Ever since George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Big 26
Brother state has been most people’s first concern about diminishing

privacy. Now private organizations and criminals are catching up fast.

The recent book Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age 27

cites the case of Stacy Snyder, a student teacher in Pennsylvania.

After she posted a picture of herself apparently drunk on a social
networking site she was denied a teaching certificate.

Burglars are already thought to use Facebook to try to find out 28

when properties may be left empty. And Anderson warns that

“phishing” is a growing threat. Using data gathered from social

networking sites, criminals are sending people emails that appear to
come from their friends. Research shows that people are far less wary

of such emails than unsolicited spam, even though they can lead to

identity theft.

While the rest of us find our privacy is up for grabs, the rich and 29
famous are having theirs increasingly protected. Lawyers are using

human rights legislation to bring cases in British courts, which are

favorable to protestations of privacy. The latest action has been

launched by Kate Middleton, the girlfriend of Prince William, who

claims her privacy was violated by a picture of her playing tennis on
Christmas Day.

A greater danger than there being one privacy law for the rich and 30

another for everyone else is that of a chronic malaise, at least in the

view of Jaron Lanier, author of a new book called You Are Not a