Private

Privacy is dead. Although my husband and I both value the concept, we realize that technology has assigned privacy to the trash heap of history. The privacy disclosures that we and our fellow Americans frequently encounter are simply absurd exercises in nostalgia.

Two recent incidents illustrate the lunacy of a privacy statement in today’s world. The other night I commented on the severe weather parts of Europe were experiencing. We were heading to bed with a laptop and a Netflick, and I suggested that we briefly check out the weather situation in the Netherlands. Three minutes later we found hundreds of live web cam feeds from all over the continent. “Eerie” is the only word that describes viewing, in real time, strangers in the pre-dawn darkness cautiously driving down their snowy, canal roadsides.

Two days later we were having dinner when my husband said, “The paths I mowed through our prairie grass last summer look good from the sky.” He had been mapping watersheds with Google Earth and had zoomed in on our small piece of the planet. After viewing the stunning detail of these aerial views, I concurred that our mowed walkways do have a lovely flow.

My only response to our brave, new world is to smile. What else can be done when we are all on Candid Camera twenty-four seven?  “Say cheese,” of course.

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