Personal privacy, however, is shaping up to be an ongoing political issue as Americans grow more worried about computer-driven intrusions into their daily lives. Privacy already is having a trickle-down effect in the federal government. What's new is the emergence of privacy as a mass issue, a phenomenon triggered by the Internet's emergence as a mass medium. Serving up services from business and government, the Net proves once again that the citizenry can be of two minds simultaneously. Take attitudes about government.
People rail against so-called big government, taxes and intrusions into, say, local schools.
Yet few people object to federal programs to clean rivers, build highways or endow education grants. The same dichotomy occurs with privacy. People get mad as hell about credit or medical dossiers, yet millions happily post intimate details of themselves on the Web. We extol the virtues of privacy, but few of us would surrender online conveniences even though they demand personal information that government and private organizations amass in databases. Federal systems must be paragons of personal privacy protection.