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The Opinion Pages|No Right to Anonymity

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The Opinion Pages | Letter

No Right to Anonymity

   SEPT. 22, 2011
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   To the Editor:

   Re “Protect Our Right to Anonymity,” by Jeffrey Rosen (Op-Ed, Sept.
   13):

   Mr. Rosen is right to worry about the fact that enhanced technology is
   a danger to anonymity. But it is unclear why he thinks that anonymity
   is something to which we have a constitutional right.

   The Fourth Amendment protects the right to privacy, but privacy is not
   the same as anonymity.

   I have the right that the state not use intrusive means (breaking the
   lock on my diary, placing a listening device on my phone, cracking
   e-mail encryption, training a thermal imager on my home) without
   judicial permission to acquire information about me.

   But I have no judicially protected right that the state not acquire
   such information by nonintrusive means. If it were otherwise, then a
   police officer’s recognizing me while walking down the street would,
   all by itself, infringe my Fourth Amendment rights.

   SAMUEL C. RICKLESS
   San Diego, Sept. 14, 2011

   The writer is a professor of philosophy at the University of
   California, San Diego.

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