Politics and Ethics

An examination of "Personal Privacy Protection: The Legislative Response" (Hernon, 199) is particularly interesting and timely in light of the recent attempt to access Google search records, the 6 month renewal of the Patriot Act, and increasing concerns about identity theft.

The library science resource: "United States Government Information: Policies and Sources" describes the "evolving value" (Hernon, 199) of privacy as a concept, and the resulting attempts on the part of the U.S. Government to protect, control, and regulate privacy via legistlated policies and delineated rights. Chapter 9 presents a history of legislative decisions and the resulting policies created in response to evolving developments information and communication technologies.

Based on the policies presented in Chapter 9, the legislative intention seems to be focused on preserving the concept of privacy while responding to changing technologies and the fact that technology provides increased access to personal information, whether directly or via data manipulation and mining.

Since evolving ICT formats are capable of compromising security, the government realized that security provisions and regulation were needed if the conceptual basis of individual privacy was to be preserved. Based on the history of legislation related to privacy, most legislative policies and regulations were enacted as privacy protection measures. By placing limits on access, the U.S. Government has attempted to preserve the concept and expectation of personal privacy.

The U.S. Government creates initiatives like HIPAA designed to protect an individual’s right to privacy, and then enacts the Patriot Act, which forces companies (like banks) to compile much more information than is needed to open a checking account in order to “prevent terrorism”. However, this recent legislation is particularly controversial because the security of personal information and privacy is unquestionably compromised. Legislation definitely affects our ethical perspective and vice versa.


Hernon, P., Relyea, H.C., Dugan, R. E., & Cheverie, J.F. (2002). United States Government information: Policies and sources. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.