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

“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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