Letters: Sep. 15, 1997

INVASION OF PRIVACY

I believe your sinister cover and article prompting fears of Big Brother are sending out the wrong message--especially to those who fear computers because they do not understand the technology [NATION, Aug. 25]. Access to personal information isn't always a terrible thing. As with fire, drugs or firearms, computerized access to personal information causes harm only if placed in the wrong hands. Computer technology has taken us a long way, mostly with great results and enormous potential. It's not the technology we should fear but the people who take our private information and use it in harmful ways. PETER GORMAN Portsmouth, N.H.

When we start enjoying the violation of our personal boundaries, as Joshua Quittner seems to be doing, it becomes terrifying for the future of freedom. We champion "human rights" all over the globe, we celebrate American individuality, and yet we no longer have that most fundamental right, to be as anonymous as we want to be. ALAN SCHWARTZ Warren, Conn.

Our inability to keep information about ourselves private is far less insidious than our inability to protect our bodies and property from harm. A burglar entering our home violates our physical privacy in a far more serious way than someone who uses the Internet to steal from us. Most of us would rather receive junk mail than deal with door-to-door salespeople. Basically, the hoodlums have changed the tools of their trade. PAWAN K. BHARTIA Mitchellville, Md.

Quittner states that somebody ran up a $3,000 bill on a duplicate of his credit card, that "the nice lady from the fraud division of the credit-card company took care of it..." and that he never lost a cent. It may be constructive to take the situation a bit further and figure out who did lose. My husband and I own a small business, and more than once we have had to deal with that "nice lady from the credit-card company" who tells us we have to absorb the loss. Even when insurance covers part of the cost, we and people like us still have to pay. When the insurance pays, who does Quittner think pays for the insurance? Right. We are all out those many, many cents. ANN E. GILL Orinda, Calif.

Sure, I could pay cash for everything and leave no paper trail for prying eyes. But the seduction of using plastic is the frequent-flyer miles I accrue. By funneling just about everything--from haircuts to a down payment on a used car--into one credit card, I'm flying from Boston to Belfast and back. For me this sure is a tolerable trade-off. TOM WITTENBERG Indianapolis, Ind.

The demise of privacy heralds the advent of a cybertribal era--an age of new barbarians obsessed with the dissolution of individuality. Our digital existence has exploded the romantic myth of freedom. Escape from this schizophrenic duality calls for the reinvention of science, values and relationships. BRIJ MOHAN Baton Rouge, La.

Technology has outpaced the law but not the truth. Who we are publicly is not who we are privately. The global interconnection is not a mass identity crisis; it is a control and power crisis. The more information (dirt) you have on someone, the more you are in control of that person. The next generation must be highly intelligent--or moral--as the electronic skeleton finder will come to everybody's closet. (THE REV.) GARY E. THOMAS, Pastor First Baptist Church Lowell, Ark.

THIS SUMMER'S WORK