2/20/2005 09:34:00 PM|||Britt|||Hall and Oates may have been on to something, besides hairstyles. Think of all the classic male duos over the years, but particularly those in the 1970s and 80s. Ponch and John. Starsky and Hutch.

The pattern is obvious. Shorter, darker one (usually the serious one) and a taller, lighter one. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I haven't found my taller, lighter counterpart.

Which leads me to the point: I'm a fairly private person. If you call me, even if I asked you to, and even if I'm standing by the phone scratching my ass, and even if you leave a message similar to "Britt, pick up the phone, I know you're standing there scratching your ass," I still probably won't pick up the phone. That's how private I am. I'm so private, I don't give out my cell phone number. Silly me, I don't even have a cell phone.

It's not that I don't like you. You're just not my taller, lighter male counterpart who can cover my back, and I know it.

That's privacy, if you're following me. Privacy is not about being afraid to sign up for some cool, free online service because you're afraid they'll track your listening habits and sell the information to Corporate Daddy Heavy Hands.

Of course, I am concerned about things like the Patriot Act when the government tracks your purchases to ascertain where you fall on the possible terrorist scale. The government basically bought the code from Amazon's recommendation engine and tweaked it to produce a terrorist engine. Hmm, bought Jihad for Dummies and some rap music. You might also enjoy spending some time in a detention cell.

Matt Haughey recently mentioned how he felt that eventually privacy would not be such an issue because so many of us will have our lives displayed online. I agree. And those who resist doing anything online for fear of privacy concerns will be replaced by robots created by those of us who do everything online.

Privacy and sending out information about yourself and your habits are two separate issues. There, I said it, but I wish I could boil the second part down into fewer words.|||110879200746327040|||Private eyes, they're watching you