Someday a stranger will read your e-mail,
rummage through your instant messages without your permission or scan
the Web sites you've visited -- maybe even find out that you read this
story. You might
be spied in a lingerie store by a secret camera or traced using a
computer chip in your car, your clothes or your skin. Perhaps
someone will casually glance through your credit card purchases or cell
phone bills, or a political consultant might select you for special
attention based on personal data purchased from a vendor. In fact, it's likely some of these things have already happened to you. Who
would watch you without your permission? It might be a spouse, a
girlfriend, a marketing company, a boss, a cop or a criminal. Whoever
it is, they will see you in a way you never intended to be seen -- the
21st century equivalent of being caught naked. Psychologists
tell us boundaries are healthy, that it's important to reveal yourself
to friends, family and lovers in stages, at appropriate times. But few
boundaries remain. The digital bread crumbs you leave everywhere make
it easy for strangers to reconstruct who you are, where you are and
what you like. In some cases, a simple Google search can reveal what
you think. Like it or not, increasingly we live in a world where you
simply cannot keep a secret. The key question is: Does that matter? For many Americans, the answer apparently is "no."
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