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Analysis: Metcalfe’s Law + Real ID = More Crime, Less Safety

Jon Stokes

“We have a saying in this business: ‘Privacy and security are a zero-sum game.’ ” Thus spake security consultant Ed Giorgio in a widely quoted New Yorker article on the U.S. intelligence community’s plans to vacuum up and sift through everything that flies across the wires. But Giorgio is wrong–catastrophically wrong. The story of Fidencio Estrada, a drug runner who bribed Florida Customs agent Rafael Pacheco to access multiple federal law-enforcement databases on his behalf, suggests that when it comes to the government collecting data on innocent civilians for law-enforcement purposes, privacy and security are essentially the same thing.

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This is a section of the All Things Digital Web site featuring posts from around the Web, from other Dow Jones properties and also original pieces we solicit. The section is now explicitly labeled that it comes "from other Web sites."

We are fully aware of the controversies around how linking and aggregating is done on the Web and we, in no way, are attempting to "scrape" original content created by others. Instead, regarding third-party posts, we are trying to point readers of this site to other posts from around the Web that we admire and are trying to do so in the quickest manner possible.

The Internet is full of terrific content that is not ours and we want to help our readers find it by making editorial suggestions--Look, Mom, no algorithm!--of posts we think are worth their time.

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