Back in 2002, science fiction author Robert J. Sawyer wrote an essay about the trade-off between privacy and security, and came out in favor of less privacy. I disagree with most of what he said, and have written pretty much the opposite essay — and others on the value of privacy and the future of privacy — several times since then.
The point of this blog entry isn’t really to debate the topic, though. It’s to reprint the opening paragraph of Sawyer’s essay, which I’ve never forgotten:
Whenever I visit a tourist attraction that has a guest register, I always sign it. After all, you never know when you’ll need an alibi.
Since I read that, whenever I see a tourist attraction with a guest register, I do the same thing. I sign “Robert J. Sawyer, Toronto, ON” — because you never know when he’ll need an alibi.
