(00:00:00) Thanks Patty six minutes past 12:00 o'clock reminder that we're going to have a special broadcast from 1:00 to 3:00 this afternoon on the situation at the University of Minnesota during the 1 o'clock hour among other things. We'll hear from University of Minnesota outgoing men's athletic director Mark Dean heart then at 2 o'clock live coverage of president yudof, suppress conference all of that coming up here on Minnesota Public Radio time. Now for today's Minnesota meeting and off we go to the Minneapolis Marriott City Center. (00:00:27) Good afternoon. I'm John Getzlaf senior vice president of LaSalle bank and a member of the Minnesota meeting board. It is my great pleasure to welcome all of you to today's Minnesota meeting members of Minnesota meeting represent this communities leaders from business government Academia and the professions. This is our 18th year in the marketplace of ideas. I would also like to welcome our radio audience throughout the Midwest who are hearing this address on the midday program of Minnesota Public Radio broadcasts of Minnesota meeting are supported by Oppenheimer wolf and Donnelly with offices in Minneapolis st. Paul and at www.4wd.com law.com Before I introduce today's speaker. I want to remind our audience that on Wednesday December 1st. The Minnesota meeting will be presenting the first ever (00:01:31) National town (00:01:32) hall meeting with Governor. Jesse Ventura on the world wide web in addition to reaching a broad audience in Minnesota and across the country. We will be awarding to students who participate in the event the opportunity to spend the entire day with Governor Ventura. To register for this groundbreaking World Wide Web event, simply go to Minnesota meeting webpage www.mit.edu cam. And now to today's speaker. Minnesota meeting is very pleased to be co-hosting doctor amitai etzioni and his visit to Minnesota today. Dr. Etzioni is a university professor at George Washington University and a director of The Institute for communitarian policy studies. He's in the Twin Cities as part of Minnesota Public Radio surveillance Society project a week-long examination of the effects of the erosion of privacy in America. He addressed the University of Minnesota law school earlier today. As perhaps the most preeminent leader of the communitarian movement Professor etzioni presents a challenge to the American belief that the in privacy at all costs public opinion polls show that Americans are increasingly concerned about invasions of their personal privacy. We worry that our cell phones are monitored our emails read our medical records traded on the open market. Congress and State legislators are considering laws designed to address these concerns. Professor etzioni argues that giving up some measure of privacy is exactly what a good Society requires an SS and then Sessa T to maintain balance between individual rights and the common good in addition to authoring 19 books including his most recent one the limits of privacy. Dr. Etzioni is past president of the American sociological Association. He serves as the Thomas Henry Carol Ford Foundation professor at the Harvard Business School, and that was in the late 80s and was professor of Sociology at Columbia University for 20 years. He has written frequently for the New York Times The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. Following his address. Dr. Etzioni will take questions from the audience Jane boracic and Glory McClanahan of the Minnesota meeting will move among you with microphones to manage the questions and answers. It is my great pleasure to present to you. Dr. Amitai etzioni. I thank you John. Thank you and gentlemen, I'm totally delighted to be here. I travel a fair amount, but when I think about states which are thoughtful, which that people are willing to listen to both sides of an argument, maybe even the third one Minnesota surely ranked second to none. And when I think about NPR we get more phone calls from a few minutes on NPR than ours in any other place. So thank you very much for the opportunity to visit with you. It goes without saying Did privacy is something which is not only dear to our heart, but is it a foundation of Liberty as a society which would remove randomly violate privacy would not be free for long? And like all of you, I don't like people reading my mail. I hate when people can lean over my outbox and have a little look what's in there. I surely don't want anybody to tap my phone. I cherish. It's been natural for us. To cherish our privacy, but I would like to put in front of you. There are a limited set of very important situations where in this tug of war between common good and privacy the allowed some very important concerns to be sacrificed because we take this strong position. That privacy is a sacred right that's a term often appears in the literature which can never be mitigated or squared with other concerns to give you a feel for what I talked about rather than just words. If you for a moment think along with me and you are working in an emergency room and some ways bring in a child young child and he who has a burn marks on her arms. and x-rays reveal that she two or three occasions had broken bones and to healed be going to assume at that point that this child is subject to abuse at home and we're going to send a social worker to ask a lot of privacy violating questions. Very few people think that this is a long thing to do by because when we have on one hand the right to privacy. On the other hand, the well-being of a child a child is being abused. We say we cherish privacy but in this situation it needs to take second seat. Think about putting your L your elders. into a nursing home Would you like to know if the staff there has been convicted of violent abuse of Elders 14% are? Would you like to know if you put your child in child care center? If the people who work there have been convicted of abusing children. These are all violation of privacy not use theirs, but nevertheless you they already served their term. They already discharged obligation to society, but you want to go and look at the record one city somebody on your behalf before you take defenseless people and put them into their care. the guy who blew up the World Trade Center had planned another operation. He had a group ready to all which going to blow up either United Nations or during rush hour one of the tunnels leading to Manhattan. The details of the operation were encrypted in his computer private space. I think it's a no-brainer that we should have a right to open that file and stop that operation before another disaster will happen. I just want to start by giving you the sense that privacy is important but like all rights. It needs to be limited. Even the right to free speech many consider our most absolute right even the ACLU agrees that you cannot shout fire in a crowded theater means there are conditions under which you cannot exercise. Did I to free speech the same holds for all other rights now introduce this in a very general way now, let me be quite a bit more specific the what we talked about here. Is a hazard some very important philosophical foundations, and I'm going to evoke here a principle and the principle is that unlike philosophies in which you get a lot of points for deriving everything from one principle from a first principle. When you come to my world of social science, you recognize up van from the get-go that societies cannot be designed following one simple rule or principle. They cannot maximize anything that societies have conflicted needs and values. That pulled in different directions and they need on the face of it to work out some kind of balance between incompatible claims and demands values and needs. Why is that so relevant here because we have on one side the philosophy which points to very important principle to very important value and that is of Liberty and in the it takes the clearest form in libertarianism. It has a more moderated form in what's called a contemporary liberals. It's appears in the science of Economics. It takes many forms. But if I'm allowed to reduce it one to one principle it a core value, but it's middle name is Liberty now, it's not fair to say that lets say Libertarians are not concerned about social order. Yeah, but detective position that it should be derivative. It should be secondary if people will contract if they will join voluntarily in association, then it's legitimate because people freely chose, but you should not impose on them most anything unless there's some serious harm to others. Now at the opposite extreme, we have people who were for to save breath our garden religious fundamentalists who take the position that we know its virtues. We need be no Delight. We know the truth. It's all written. And what we have to do is make people Total Line and if they don't see the light himself, you have to bring it to them one way or the other the most extreme version of this you see in Iran with a small squads patrolling the streets to see that women cover himself. Everybody prays five times a day. We have much more moderate version of this where people want to ban divorce not convince people that family life is virtuous. I would join that camp, but to make them virtues they line which we hear from this side. Which kind of which capture it all is. We have to keep the lid on. This is garbage can full of humanity which is bubbling out of control if the sit on it to behave now, you ask if people are you not concerned about Liberty or shoe? They say people should be free to choose what the Lord tell them to do. now both are not off. both correctly perceive that a good Society has social order has virtues and has Liberties that day Miss in my judgment is a mandatory to go too far any good thing you take and you push it extreme becomes harmful medicine chocolate anything which is a motivation is fabulous becomes harmful when you push it to extremes if you accept this for a moment, then you see why we argue as a communitarian thinking that a book that is a book called. The new golden rule is we need to synthesize bucket was consideration. We need to find a carefully crafted balance a carefully crafted balance between our rights and our social responsibilities. Now I apologize to those of you in the audience who this is their livelihood of philosophers. I just took six months course and collapse it into two minutes, but I sure do appreciate I don't have all the time. I would like to have now in this synthesized world. We then go from this abstraction and ask me. I'll be in history. And then you find out anyway curious that if you are a society, which is very tightly woven. Let's say Japan their social Duties are very pronounced and clearly articulated. I mean just to give you one line. The Japanese line is the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. If you get the feel of that, you know, what I'm talking about human rights Korean rights handicapped rights in Japan are not very celebrated. Let me say gently now when I'm in Japan is that was two weeks ago. We say if you are concerned as the balance between the community to come and good and right Japan you need to pay much more attention to Liberty to rights in the United States. Some of us felt that in the 80s. We went a little too far and opposite direction where we took something which is very important extending out of women to handicap the minorities and we start trivializing and pushing this Beyond Reason to save time. I just going to use one example the progressive town of Santa Barbara. Already had a regulation that if they're more in three women standing in line in front of the ladies room of woman's whom they can declare an emergency and use the men's room. by the feminist brought suit that this regulation violates the right to use the men's room anytime now well, Lane gentleman is an immigrant that the constitution several times like to show you. There's not a hint of a such a right give him more time. I could give you quite a few other examples, we're doing a period of for someone's consider excessive individualism this notion of putting manufacturing ever more rights. We got carried away and we felt that in the United States in the 80s had to move to what greater concern with social virtues to balance. So societies need to move often in opposite directions to the come to the same point of balance the same holds to privacy their privacy comes into conflict with the common good these cannot automatically say which one has to yield. We need to examine the situation and then correct According to which the reaction we excessively tilting now, I kept using the phrase the common good and that might some people may consider this kind of a fuzzy vague phrase now. Let me be very very specific. I'm talking about two specific public concerns. Public Safety and public health, these are not vague considerations when I talk about terrorists having encrypted messages. To blow up United Nations or tunnel leading to Manhattan. I'm not going back in Vegas family. Then I will talk in a moment about HIV. It's a terrible terrible disease almost fatal which dangerous millions of lives in all over the world that that is not some vague aspiration for Wonderful World. These are if you want to use a technical excessive language here is a clear and present dangers. So what we said is like this, how do we know when we come to this tension between Public Health Public Safety and rights. How do we know where to tilt we say first of all? Is there a problem we do not want to start changed legal or ethical conditions or randomly just to change them. But when we Face serious problem just we just talked about we think we need to address the imbalance. The second say let's try to find a way and I'll give an example in a moment. They can fix the situation without touching our basic principles because we want to share them and keep them intact as much as possible. For instance when it comes to cigarette smoking some people want to ban advertising but that raises constitutional First Amendment issues the right to free speech commercial speech. There's another way of achieving the same goal Apple even better and that is to raise taxes on cigarettes. Now, you may think we shouldn't do neither. That's K. All I'm trying to say is if you want to as a public policy to discourage teens from smoking raising taxes on cigarettes will not raise constitutional issues while many advertising web even and Eve's our second cut here is then find ways you can address the problem without tampering with our basic principles. If that fails then we say our actions should be minimally intrusive we should act as little as possible to correct the imbalance now that sounds like an all-day up stock. And so I need to give you a concrete case. It takes me about 40 pages in the limits of privacy to lay out all the data, but I'll make a short story out of it. In all 50 states by law when children are born the Physicians and nurses take some blood from their heel and send it to the laboratory to check if the child has picky you if the test is positive. They informed the parents that the child has to go on a diet that if they will put the child child on a diet if we go up fine if they will not ever be severely retarded. So in this case, we don't ask them all the questions you don't talk about consent forms. We're not negotiating the routinely do it every day every hospital and we reason is very straightforward. We think if there's a way to save a child from being severely retarded but giving the parents information who in his right mind wouldn't do that. Well in not in the 90s and the early 90s we said to ourselves. You know what we have this blood in the lab. Anyhow. Why do we also check it for HIV? And it allow us to keep statistics if the disease is spreading or where is concentrated it be very useful for public health, and we did so again without fuss. And then came new new medical information. The found out that the last two years that if the mother will be told not to breastfeed the child. And to give it a ZT immediately after birth. The child has a very significant probability of sowing of the illness then gentleman showing off their Liz. I'm not talking about ameliorating. I mean saving the child from a disease is always fatal horrible disease. well The other side argued that is a violation of the privacy of the mother. As we speak, there's only one state which allows you to tell the mother which is New York all the other states Minnesota included children die and I don't take this lightly is no controversial of the controversy about the medical information. Nobody denies that if you give the child as a tea and you do not waste fit it it has a much better chance of selling of the illness now be fair. Let me tell you what the other side says. So you see these things get complicated but in the end we my judgment there are unmistakable conclusions. The other side says look, why should we do this to the mother? She did not concerned. It's a violation of her Liberties and such autonomy privacy when we get women were pregnant into prenatal care. And doing prenatal care of you asked him for consent to be tested then if we find out they have HIV will counsel them advise them and be all voluntary and fun. Very very good idea. We doing some of these we should do much more. The fact there is that they didn't hear very often with people who are drug abusers and exchange needles and we cannot get them to some of them. To come to prenatal care as much as we try. Worse if your test is on Monday and exchange needle on Tuesday, you still going to get HIV so you would have to test people again again again till very shortly before delivery. Looking at all this together. Frankly for me. There is no brainer. It's not a big question saving a life of a child. Clearly takes priority over the Privacy right of the mother indeed to push the point. I would think that a mother whose child died because she breastfed it or didn't give it a ZT had a wonderful or case against that hospital or doctor who didn't tell her that she could save her child. Now I use this one because frankly it's a clear-cut case for me. The other kids are much more complicated the question if we should the government should be able to break encryption. The question is we have a whole new thing coming on. It's called Biometrics. Let me just explain this for one sentence and move on. We are going to be having our new whole new technology coming online very very quickly. And that is the computer will recognize you Wells Fargo has an ATM machine. You don't need to bring an ATM card. You don't need a password. It looks in your face and recognize you and give you all the cash you're entitled to have now. This is the many others the question we face like this. And that's a much more complicated case thereabouts a hundred thousand criminals on the lam people have been convicted who either have not been arrested because they run or they escaped from prisons. Now the question I'm asking you and for your consideration should this this computers which going to be all over the place in airports every place when they see that this is one of these people should they dial nine-one-one or not means should be used this new technology only. for a business or should we also use it enhance Public Safety? Is there right of convicted felon not to be caught. I'll leave this for your considerations. Now to my last points and I'm very much looking forward to discussion. One is we tend to see privacy as something we need to be protected from I'm sorry. We need private to use with privacy to protect ourselves from the intrusive government. So the mathematical formula is its again and again pronounce? Is the more privacy we have the less intrusion by the government and the more intrusion by the government the less privacy just seems to me almost self-evident mathematical certainty. I'd like to tell you it ain't necessarily so. What happens is and let me first put this idea in one sentence. It takes a village to prevent an indecent Act. What I mean is like is that where we have viable communities but we have a social fabric our first line of defense against Behavior, which we would not like to see happen is when the neighbors and friends the extended family frown on it. So when you first hear that the neighbors husband has a very ferocious fight with his wife and your friends going to be turned to violence. And then you hear another one in the third one if your friend with their husband, or maybe we survived in the health club. Ba you say it open John? What's happening? Can we talk about you try to communicate that this is not acceptable behavior and try to point a person in some direction conflict resolution terapy, whatever encouraged and your occasionally also mildly criticized child when my neighbors were away and the teenagers had a party, you know, then they stumbled out of the party into their sports cars. Well, I did have a talk with the parents and I think I should have So these informal subtle social mechanism are our best least expensive monuments natural way of making people better than they would be otherwise, but they require that we know what's happening. If I put in hermetic seal on people's homes and building so we never find out what's happening. None of that works. And then we have to rely on the government to come in to 10 to those things. We want attending to that the maybe thinks we think nobody should interfere. That's fine. But those matters like child abuse neglect of children spousal abuse does things we care about the more they handled by the subtle mechanism of society the less government. We need somewhat less privacy goes with quite a bit less government. Last that's for the lawyers here or the law professors even better the right to privacy. I think most of you know is not as much as mentioned in the Constitution. period it is a very very recent vintage. It was created in the mid-1960s. And it was fashioned by the Supreme Court in a very peculiar manner the case which was in front of the court was If a married couple married coupled and Connecticut has a right to use contraception now today, it sounds almost absurd, you know married couple couldn't buy contraception couldn't use contraception. But in the far away mid 1960s, there was a law of the land it was challenged in the Supreme Court felt like I think many of us do today that that law should be removed. They couldn't find quite place in Constitution to drawn so they created his right to privacy but to see what's at issue here has nothing to do with privacy. It has to do with Choice indeed all the following cases so-called reproductive right cases culminating with always Wade abortion trust issue all these you know, the the question of do I have a right to see what you're doing. What is the question who controls the ACT should be the state? Or the person these are Choice issues control issues. I'm interested push the point. They pour life people do not run around say they want to have abortions in someone on television. No in the public squares, we can all see it. It's not a privacy issue. It's a question who controls the act and when I buy can of beans in the supermarket, I make the choice. I don't care who sees it. So what happened here is because the right to privacy was created around choice on which people felt very strongly. It was great in a rather. Absolutely. Stick manner. Well, what I want to close upon is to suggest that we should bake the right to privacy into two parts the what's the lawyers called decisional privacy the choice the issue should be based on the 14th Amendment while the right to privacy is most violent us understand. This term should be based on the fourth amendment. Why because the fourth amendment is one of the two which right there in the text recognizing the balancing issue have been talked about they force Amendment does not say congress shall make no law or the be no searches. It says there be no unreasonable searches, which of course means there's a category of reasonable ones those in the public interest it recognized on the face of it that we have a need to privacy. We have a need for Public Safety and then opens the door to balancing. It does one better. It has in place a mechanism for sorting out when should privacy prepare and when the public good should Prevail and that is you have to go to court as a whole and prove that you have specific cause while you want to have the search soul and gentlemen, what I'm saying to you is privacy is one of our most important rights. We should not allow it to be randomly abused. When they're compelling concerns for the public good for public health for Public Safety. We need to examine the balance the First Amendment. This is provision for warrants is our best Constitution tool. Thank you very much. (00:32:22) unfortunately, we're having some difficulty picking up the questions from the Minnesota meeting audience, but bear with us (00:32:27) to do with self-regulation, and how do we As a (00:32:35) company do the right thing (00:32:38) and and live up to the Privacy expectations that are out there. And is there an opportunity for us to create a competitive advantage in our Industries and Fields by Meeting those privacy concerns? And (00:32:52) if so, how do you think we can do that (00:32:55) as a very good question if you go back to my site criteria, but the first one was is there a problem the second one can be solved in some voluntary manner self-regulation by which we mean usually that we're going to do to our self and keep the government out is a kind of a prime example of having a voluntary Arrangements indeed. Let me again make this less theoretical many of the large corporations agreed is one another and it Association to diagram are cutting Association and others that they will not Collect information about children who are 12 years or younger without explicit permission of their parents and they trying to enforce that. I think that is wonderful example and one we should celebrate more often then industry does something which I think is on the side of the Angels without the government forcing it it's complicated because the government also certain to do it itself they wouldn't so there's all these things are more complicated but there are other examples where self regulation Works quite nicely about making a comparative advantage is interesting question. They are normally go too far afield here but we have a little problem is Europeans. They were pins have some very very stringent privacy regulations and they Save A Lot trade with us unless we match them as a long story. So I yes there is room for compared comparative advantage also for comparative (00:34:31) disadvantage. Dr. Etzioni. Our next question is from Sid Cindy. I'd knows who's with the law registry. Thank you. Dr. Etzioni. I was wondering with the internet and e-commerce being such a Hot Topic these days and privacy obviously being another Hot Topic. How do you relate the concepts? You're talking about regarding privacy to the use of the internet. (00:34:55) Well until last week A lot of people are had this dream I should call it fantasy that cyberspace is going to be the New Zion and the Last Frontier in which we going to live by completely different rules have been people on the left for long time over hoping today that the state will wither away and we're going to govern ourselves without any other interventions and cyberspace was the last train before it was the Soviet Union now, forgive me for the Dig but historically accurate now what happened on November 3rd. As cyberspace stop being a virtual Village is becoming a virtual jungle in which you can get market and cheated and abused like most other places that this all burned out by the wayside as the government announced that it will introduce an incredibly extensive set of regulations only for online. And this is the regulation concerning medical privacy. So those of you are interested once this is in place be very difficult to argue that we couldn't do other things that the government can do other things because it kind of regulates the most intimate privacy issue in a very heavy-handed way, by the way, it does not rely on the consent of the individual it relies on government Banning certain kinds of transmissions and it's relies on the federal government it explicitly preempt State privacy. Legislation unless it's even tighter than the federal one and they're quite substantial penalties. So this is just a very specific concrete way that we rapidly leaving behind the notion that this somehow is extraterritorial. We now the Department of Justice is looking to the question if pharmacies could go on the internet and be exempt from the same rules that are exempt and private business and an N. So I would fully expect that as cyber space becomes ever more important it become ever more normalized and it will be subject to the same rules and same problem as a society at large has including people who ship things on it one of these days we have to pay taxes. (00:37:22) Great. Thank you Doctor etzioni. We have another question from Bill Hoffman and Bill is from the University of Minnesota medical school. (00:37:28) Yes, a serious public discussion of right of privacy began a century ago following the publication of the article in the Harvard Law review by Samuel warned and Louis Brandeis. How do you think they would view the evolution of the right of privacy over this past Century and today's surveillance in society and would they agree with the balancing of interests that you suggest is a very important point was mentioned but I only had talked about the constitutional right to privacy which is between us and the government which was created just like 35 years ago. There was an 1890 law review article published called the right to privacy which is often described as the most influential log of you ever written because it laid the foundation for the Legal Foundation for guide to privacy but not a constitutional right, but it's called taught in the relationship between people to one another it had to do with gossip. I can interesting detail. Mrs. Warren and was offended the rifle the judge who one of the co-authors of the article that gossip about her was published in the newspaper. She didn't mind when it was in the community because they're she thought correctly people knew about her which she really was and they said something it says on it. Once it was published in a newspaper then it took a whole other life and now it wasn't around the you could no longer really checking really know her and this tank is piece of information out of context. She found a particularly offensive. This issue is now in place 1 million times more just to give one example, I guess the I could arrest records in the past. They're open book. Is it important Italian? There's not a people have been convicted yet. People are arrested. You could go to the police station and look at the police blotter and find out the names occasionally reporters used to do that. Now now we're going to put this on the internet And suddenly ends up being something cumbersome which local people could come and look is going to be the everybody's fingertips. And that's exactly what brand is born in bond is very worried about kind of taking something from an intimate context and make it available to everybody and then of course you go for a job you are guest record will pop and such so I think they would be very alarmed. by this enormous increase of the floor of information from small intimate circles to the World Wide Web, but let me also say That they lived in a very different world. Not only that was more intimate but in a world in which virtues the common good very extremely strong. I mean just to go back a little farther just to give you a Feel Again doing good colonial days in the first days of the Republic a single person could not live on her own or his own they had to border with somebody why so we could keep an eye on them. So in those days we didn't trust single people and so we all this went by the wayside as Salem was long time ago. So now the question I would ask Warren and Brandeis If the world turned out now to the point there are commitments to one another often neglected. Does that change your basic thinking or would you hold on to the same notion and frankly? I don't know what the answer would (00:41:03) be. A quick Interruption here. I'm I just wanted to go from our small intimate Circle that we have in our Minnesota meeting and to remind people that on December first. We're going to be doing a national town meeting with Governor Jesse Ventura using the world wide web and I'm presuming we're not going to be regulated. We don't know that for a fact (00:41:22) but it's the governor. (00:41:24) Thank you. We we have a next question here from Jim Gamboni who is with points of view Incorporated in the second example that you gave of the least intrusive form (00:41:35) of invasion of privacy. The young child (00:41:37) that has their blood taken from their heel and it's in the lab and I take it that most of the kids that you're talking about come from Fairly vulnerable populations when you talked about HIV and drug users is you use that example in a society that sometimes when that blood is in the lab a person will say well, why do we do such a thing and many times the answer is because we can what's to prevent us once we allowed them to test for HIV for example to go down a slippery slope and say well wouldn't it be in the public? (00:42:06) A good to know because we know now the (00:42:08) DNA structure to predict that that child might have other illnesses that would be beneficial for that child and the whole notion of going down that slippery slope to be able to identify and predict many kinds of problems and basically invading that child's privacy who not the mothers privacy, but the child's privacy and I guess what stops us in your analysis from going down that slippery (00:42:32) slope a very very good question and often raised the slippery slope argument is probably most often used by people who oppose the kind of Corrections we are talking about so I'm happy. You're brought it up the question then your face like this their argument is usually used when people say I don't have any trouble with the thing itself. I think it's married. I just afraid was going to lead to so I don't think you said that you would not want to save a child's life, but you're afraid that lead to other evil things and therefore and then you come to the question. If we are afraid of the slippery slope. Are we there for going to be Frozen with the ever happened to be we will not dare make any changes because it God knows going to lead to the slippery slope is not predictable. So in this case, are we going to allow? positive children to face a horrible fatal disease Because we phrase going to lead to something else. We don't like. My answer is we should neither be frozen on top of the slope. Or end up on our back side at the bottom of the slope. I think we should Mark Notch the slope. So every time we change things we need to put very clear markers how far we're going to go and where we going to stop my markers out a if you want now you testified your V. Now you come and say I want to test for something else. I will press want you to show to me that this is a very serious public threat So if you want to test just because you're curious. Or because you want to make money off of it. I would say this is not a compelling common good, but if you come up with a third disease for instance hepatitis. For instance, you know what we do with people have to be right you put him in a motel for six months and say you leave you when you're done the when there is a contagious disease which has a serious threat to the public. I'm a willing to consider testing for one more thing. So I think we should avoid this dichotomous things either. We there's a right to privacy Nothing Else Matters. Nothing never going to be touched or we're going to test people left alive without any concerns. We need to have a balance and we need to specific markers how far we're going to go and when we going to go no (00:45:13) farther. Thank you. Dr. Etzioni. Our next question is from John Van Atta. He's the director of government Affairs at Lake Region Manufacturing. (00:45:23) Doctor, do you think that in the future as the world continues to shrink and of course, it will and populations continue to grow and government and other agencies continue surveillance of what we do and how we do it that privacy will all become an almost impossible. Yeah, a lot of people are going around and saying that privacy is a dead in effect the president of Saint Michael's something never mind. He's maybe should not even named his Corporation but one of the CEOs especially in our especially since I don't remember the name of the corporation, but anyhow, he made this statement that privacy is dead. Get over it. I don't think that's in pickly. Correct an effect. I see this is kind of a like a tug-of-war there on the one hand. You have all kind of new means of attack. In order to other hand, you have all kind of new means of defense and as often happens, there's kind of a race between them at the moment that tag is winning, but this is not at all clear that this will necessarily continue one example of where there's a new very very powerful tool of privacy, which is called encryption high-power encryption probably cannot be included on certainly not by just any curious journalists or local police is great question if it can be broken at all, when we now use our credit cards on the internet when Banks and messages to one another very large part of our communication internet goes through an encrypted channels. And in fact, very soon will be almost completely routine when you pick up your phone or your open your PC, the message will be encrypted. So if you have a whole Tool here, which you can I think accurately defined as hyper privacy. We have other tools, I think not many of you know, but I have some good news. If you go back to your computer after this session, you'll find a way to blow away the cookies the cookies are this little spy profiles corporations put into our PC including Microsoft and Intel to find out what we are doing and just to again illustrate some of you may remember the Melissa virus which by the way was not in the public interest and endangered our financial system depending on a air traffic control the way we caught the hacker was that Microsoft puts numbers on all our documents and this document was numbered so they could trace him so there are windows in your windows so that but there is a device in the browser which allows you to find them and zap them so I could go on and on to say there's attacked his defense at the moment attack is doing better. But I do not think it's correct and pure clear otherwise to say that privacy is dead. Forget it privacy is there let's cherish it. (00:48:39) Thank you. Dr. Anthony we have time for a couple more questions. Thanks to the generosity of our corporate sponsors were able to bring high school students and teachers to these meetings and Tim Duncan is a High School junior right at like their high school and she has a question for (00:48:52) you. Dr. Etzioni. I'd like to play Devil's Advocate a little if I may (00:48:58) oftentimes a violation of privacy is committed against a person who is merely a suspect of doing wrong doing almost as the type of proof. My question is if a situation arises where after this violation of privacy occurs, and the person is cleared, how is this violation Justified as it does not conflict with the safety or health concerns of the community. (00:49:21) That is an excellent question. Look at it again is something concrete because it's focused thinking let's look at the so called Megan laws which now exists in all 50 states, which have been challenged in the Supreme Court and have been upheld by the Supreme Court. What they do is exactly what you say if there's somebody who sexually abused children and they've been sent its let's say for ten years in prison, they're completed their sentence. They release to the community and the making laws require Community notification that that person moved next door to you and I was very concerned about that and I spend more than six months just on this issue and it takes a long chapter in the limits of privacy asking this question and what I found to my horror Is that the average child abuser? Abuses 30 children before his court and that they have a very very high maybe 75% maybe higher repeat, right? So now ask yourself or if you have a younger brother or sister if you know anybody has children dispersed move next door. He's the first to tell you if you ask him, I can't help myself. I'm going to do it again. Should we tell parents the neighborhood that we have a problem here? It should be say he's privacy takes priority over developing of a very large number of children. (00:50:53) Thank you doctor as soon as we are out of time. You've been listening to amitai etzioni the author of the limits of privacy and the spirit of community the reinvention of American society speaking at today's Minnesota meeting held in Downtown Minneapolis at the Minneapolis Marriott Civic City Center part of our week-long series here the surveillance Society a look at the issue of privacy in America special broadcasts here on Minnesota Public Radio, and we hope you've been able to catch most of the material that we've been broadcasting will have some more in all things considered this evening. If you missed part of the coverage this week and it has been extensive check out our website, you're going to find much much more at our website MP r dot org information about a lot of the separate issues that come under the larger umbrella issue of the Privacy issue will also find a quiz on our website and R dot org, when you get there, you'll find a link to the surveillance Society like to remind you that broadcasts of Minnesota meeting are supported by Oppenheimer wolf and Donnelly LLP with offices in Minneapolis. St. Paul and at www.osha.gov UD law.com providing legal services to businesses around the (00:52:26) world (00:52:28) that does it for our midday program today. Sarah Mayer is the producer of our midday program care a fig and shoe is our assistant producer and we had help this week from Michael coup Clifford Bentley and Betsy Cole. We hope you'll be able to join us on Monday for Midday on Monday were going to among other things here from Texas. Governor George W bush even as we speak he is getting ready to deliver what's being billed as a major foreign policy.