Right to Privacy Trumps Public Opinion

John Balzar belittles my desire to keep my personal affairs private and ridicules the idea of encrypting electronic data (“Let’s Hear It for Busybodies,” Commentary, Nov. 25). This cannot escape unchallenged.

Nothing sinister should be inferred when I want to keep my e-mail or computer files private. These are indeed my private thoughts, and I want to choose carefully with whom I share them. We all have secrets that we do not want to share with our neighbors, police, employers, telemarketers or other strangers.

Not everyone wanting to protect his or her privacy is a criminal or terrorist. A business might want to protect sensitive details of a new product before it is patented. Two lovers might want to keep their exchange of amorous messages secret. I certainly want to protect the file on my office computer that contains a list of all my credit cards. These are all examples of data that should be encrypted.

No, I do not trust the government to protect my secrets. The government cannot even protect its own secrets. We have seen FBI agent Robert Hanssen selling government secrets to Russia. And we have seen phone records seized because the government could not prevent the leak of information about a sensitive investigation into a senator’s possible corruption (“U.S. Action in Reporter’s Case Questioned,” Aug. 29).

David E. Ross

Oak Park

Balzar’s feeble rant about the evils of encryption offers no new arguments in support of the law-and-order crowd’s objection to encryption. At worst, these arguments accuse any American who places a letter in an envelope of having something to hide. Does Balzar communicate with his attorney or accountant via postcard? Or does he simply believe that privacy is reserved for Luddites?

John Hurst

Burbank