Computers and privacy in the pivotal decade

The author discusses information privacy, the right to control data about individuals that is kept by governmental and corporate institutions. He notes that the 1990s promises to be the decade that determines the course of information and privacy policies for many decades to come. He argues that what must be confronted is the fact that the necessary laws have not been passed because certain sectors of the American business community, along with government, have formed an antiprivacy lobby which, due to lack of focus and little effective pressure on lawmakers, has been able to derail most proposals that politicians generally could not oppose in a highly visible context. He further argues that the challenge now is to raise the visibility of the campaign for privacy protection and to focus its energies on obtainable, constructive solutions that do not get so watered down along the way that they do more harm than good.<>