Invading Privacy

A while ago, S had her apartment broken into, and while only a couple things were stolen (namely money and a camera) the idea of someone you don't know walking around in your house and rooting through your things is very unsettling. I remember discovering that my freshman year roommate had eaten something I purposely hid in my underwear drawer so she wouldn't find it and realizing that she was probably looking in all of my drawers every day (or else, how would she have found it!). The anger, but mostly betrayal, and embarrassment for something I didn't need to be embarrassed about (I really didn't have anything to hide, except food) was overwhelming. So overwhelming that I still hold disdain for her, a girl I haven't seen in almost 7 years. In a way, I feel really bad for her, because she was severely depressed and lost in the world that she was thrust into for college, but I also feel violated in a way I have never felt violated since or before.

However, the recent hacking of the Bush email accounts has me wondering what it would feel like if someone hacked into my email or my online life. Honestly, I probably do have many things I wouldn't want everyone to see, not that I can think of things right now, but I also don't know what is there. I have had my gmail account for about 7 years and my hotmail account for over 12 (I don't even WANT to know what I emailed to people back then.. weird) and I wouldn't want everyone to have access to those things!

This article, in Slate of course, discusses what that might feel like. A business man was threatened by a hacker to reveal all of his information (mostly business related information) and when he approached his superiors and a lawyer they also had to look through the information to see if anything would be damaging. The fact that not only would a person you don't know have all that access to your stuff, but people you will have to see again every day would want access as well is ... humbling, to say the least.

What is privacy in today's world? I know that someone in Google could probably track all of my activity, and if someone hacked into my email accounts there would probably be things that I don't want them to see, but I know that generally, I assume no one will see it. I guess we should assume the only thing we can regard as private are our thoughts, and maybe person to person conversations that are not in the public domain. It's interesting to think you'd have to live your life in a completely cleansed form to be completely innocent. Just think of celebrities, they are followed and every move is documented. I think if I were not allowed to have any privacy I would probably go insane, and I think the definition of privacy is changing dramatically.

R