5. Anonymity, Security, Privacy, and Civil Liberties

This chapter surveys the traditional ethical and privacy issues including security, anonymity, and the analysis of how these issues are influenced by computer technology. This dialog also looks at privacy and the protection of civil rights. But in the absence of and agreed upon set of civil liberties by scholars, the discussion focuses on the following four accepted categories: (1) criminal justice that includes police powers, personal liberty, and the right to a fair trial; (2) basic freedoms of speech, assembly, association, movement, and no discrimination; (3) freedom of information; and (4) communications and privacy. With the rapid advances in computer technology, and in particular the advent of the Internet mobile telecommunication technologies, the reader is challenged and brought into the discussion of finding ways, best practices, and in some cases protocols and frameworks to protect these civil liberties. The chapter ends with a challenge to the reader to find a fitting ethical framework to protect us and our ethical and social values against the avalanche of these technologies. What should be included in it? Is there a need for a legal framework also? The reader is prompted!