Amitai Etzioni Quotes

Historically, privacy was almost implicit, because it was hard to find and gather information. But in the digital world, whether it's digital cameras or satellites or just what you click on, we need to have more explicit rules - not just for governments but for private companies.

The U.S. Constitution protects our privacy from the prying eyes of government. It does not, however, protect us from the prying eyes of companies and corporations.

We have to examine very carefully any privacy-reducing technology.

I think that the default for collecting any kind of personal data should be opt-in consent.

If information is gathered, history shows that it will be used at some time.

In our view, the current storage by the government of bulk meta-data creates potential risks to public trust, personal privacy, and civil liberty.

… the government should not be permitted to collect and store mass, undigested, non-public personal information.

Privacy violations should be considered criminal offences.

In this era of massive online connectivity, the majority of privacy breaches and data leaks remain unknown, unchallenged, and unregulated. Regulatory compliance alone cannot ensure privacy.

Do I have a reasonable expectation of privacy in any information that I share with a company? My Google searches? The emails I send? Do I have a reasonable expectation of privacy in anything but maybe a letter I hand deliver to my wife?

I'm not for the mass collection of data. I go the other way.

You have to fight for your privacy or you lose it.

In the Internet age, it is inevitable that corporations and government agencies will have access to detailed information about people's lives.

Privacy may actually be an anomaly.

I really believe that we don't have to make a trade-off between security and privacy. I think technology gives us the ability to have both.

The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry. But we live in a complex world where you're going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change.

Privacy isn't negotiable. It's the right of every American.

We have never really had absolute privacy with our records or our electronic communications - government agencies have always been able to gain access with appropriate court orders.

In digital era, privacy must be a priority. Is it just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous?

I really fight for my privacy.

I just knew at an early time in my life how important privacy was.

Foreigners like me have no privacy rights whatsoever. Yet we keep using U.S.-based services all the time, making us a legal target for gathering and storing our private information. Other countries do surveillance as well. But nobody has the global visibility that United States does.

Facebook mistreats its users. Facebook is not your friend; it is a surveillance engine. For instance, if you browse the Web and you see a 'like' button in some page or some other site that has been displayed from Facebook. Therefore, Facebook knows that your machine visited that page.

I have nothing to hide!

We need to start seeing privacy as a commons - as some kind of a public good that can get depleted as too many people treat it carelessly or abandon it too eagerly. What is privacy for? This question needs an urgent answer.