Right to know versus the right to privacy

Way, way back in 1964 — when transatlantic telephone calls had to be booked hours in advance, and no office was without the clatter of typewriters and supplies of carbon paper — the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke contemplated a future world of instant global communication.

Way, way back in 1964 — when transatlantic telephone calls had to be booked hours in advance, and no office was without the clatter of typewriters and supplies of carbon paper — the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke contemplated a future world of instant global communication.

Satellites, he said, would enable tele-medicine and tele-commuting. Not many years later — when the first primitive, mass-market word processors were being made — he saw a time in which people with keyboards attached to screens would be able to send messages to anyone anywhere on the planet with a keyboard and a screen.