warning Americans that their cell phone conversations are not secure,
employers read their e-mail, mutual funds sell details of their financial
records to marketers, and their medical records are an open book.
Public opinion polls show that Americans are appropriately agitated. ³
And Congress as well as state legislatures are at least claiming that
new legislation to protect privacy is imminent. ⁴ Also, as the abun-
dance of clichés about cyberspace indicates, new technologies have
made invasion of privacy so much easier that we are justified in asking
what remains of privacy and how it is to be saved in the new cyber-
age. ⁵

This is a book largely about the other side of the privacy equation.
It is about our investment in the common good, about our profound
sense of social virtue, and most specifically about our concern for pub-
lic safety and public health. Although we cherish privacy in a free soci-
ety, we also value other goods. Hence, we must address the moral, le-
gal, and social issues that arise when serving the common good entails
violating privacy.

When I mentioned the subject of this book to audiences of friends,
students in my classes, and members of the public, initially they were
all taken aback. Privacy, they pointed out, is under siege, if not already
overrun. Given privacy's great importance to a free people, my listen-
ers stressed, one should seek new ways to shore it up, not cast more
aspersions on it.

To begin a new dialogue about privacy, I have asked these and simi-
lar audiences if they would like to know whether the person entrusted
with their child care is a convicted child molester. I mention that
when such screening is done, thousands are found to have criminal
records, ones that include pedophilia. ⁶ I further ask: Would they want
to know whether the staff of the nursing home in which their mother
now lives have criminal records that include abusing the elderly? I
note that 14 percent of such employees are found to have criminal
records, some of which include violent acts against senior citizens. ⁷
And should public authorities be entitled to determine whether driv-
ers of school buses, pilots, or police officers are under the influence of
illegal drugs? Should the FBI be in a position to crack the encrypted
messages employed by terrorists before they use them to orchestrate
the next Oklahoma City bombing? Addressing such concerns raises

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