Month: October 2013

Here is a link to the story I hope to read part of at Laurel Leigh’s Village Books Open Mic on October 28, which I call Lunchus Interuptus. The story is written using characters created by Rex Stout in his Nero Wolfe series of detective stories, although I suppose I could not help slipping in some of my personality. I admit that it is impertinent to steal from Grand Master Stout–but he is dead and my writers group (TPWG, The Private Writers Group) has read this story and said nice things. I’ve scrubbed it up some since the group read it, and now I intend to read a couple pages to the open mic. If I have done my job well, the listeners will want to read the rest of the story, so it is posted here. If they don’t want to read it, I will have learned something important. I hate to learn, but life insists on it.

Rex Stout started writing the Nero Wolfe mysteries in the 1930s and he continued until he died in 1975. He created a repertoire of characters that appear in most of the novels and stories: Nero Wolfe, Archie Goodwin, Fergus Cramer, Fritz Brenner, Saul Panzer, Lily Rowan, and more. Part of Stout’s charm is the comfortable familiarity he created in setting and characters.

I like to think of Stout’s characters as deep caricatures–akin to both Bertie Wooster and Philip Marlowe. They are more realistic than a burlesque, but magnified beyond life; often comic, but facing deeply serious issues.The putative main character, Nero Wolfe, is a lazy and reluctant genius whom Archie must goad into action. Somewhere buried in his seventh of a ton planted in a custom-built chair, Wolfe is a mortally wounded hero, and I believe his wounds draw us to him. Archie, the true center of the stories, is a wise-cracking squire who does Wolfe’s leg work, but will not face his own quest until Wolfe’s wounds are resolved and Archie is set free.

A&E produced a Nero Wolfe television series from 2001 to 2002 starring Timothy Hutton and Maury Chaykin. There have been several radio, movie, and television productions based on Nero Wolfe, but I like the A&E series best. It’s as faithful as television ever is to the original and the sets are Merchant Ivory gorgeous. I recommend seeing it if you have a chance. There is a DVD set of the entire two seasons. There was a Canadian CBC radio series that is good listening, but it is hard to find.

 

The right to privacy doesn’t appear in the constitution and the concept of privacy in the United States was not clearly legally defined until the late 19^th Century. For constitutional constructionists, there is not much help in the constitution on privacy, but most people have some idea that citizens have some rights. Privacy is similar to free speech. There is a fine line between free speech which is protected and hate speech, which can be prosecuted. The same applies to privacy. Suspected criminals do not have the same rights to privacy as law-abiding citizens. The difficulty is distinguishing between free and hate speech, law-abiding citizens and probable criminals. I don’t want to discuss the exact criteria applied in these situations. I would rather assume that there is a clear and accepted distinction and it is applied equitably. (I don’t necessarily agree with that assumption, but it is another day’s discussion.)

I was raised on a rural telephone party line. My parents did not get a private line until after I graduated from college. On a party line, you never know which of your neighbors are listening; people rudely interrupt conversations and perform other unspeakable mischief. This is important because it shaped my attitude toward communications. I have come a long way from the party-line days, but in my gut, I am still on that party line where privacy was absent. Laws against eavesdropping and interference were printed on the second page of the telephone directory. The laws threatened fines and imprisonment, but everyone ignored the laws anyway because breaking the law was easy, pleasant, and hard to prove. Speaking on the phone was the same as making a sign and posting it on the roadside for the neighbors to read.

Did that diminish the value of telephone service? Some, but people were willing to sacrifice to pay for a telephone, which shows the service had value. I have always had the same attitude toward all computer based communication, including cell phones. You never know who might be listening, reading, or recording. I know this to be true because I know the technology well enough to know that accessing information on any computer or communication system is possible for someone with the right knowledge and privilege, and knowledge and privilege can be obtained in both legitimate and illegitimate ways. And I also know people well enough to know that the laws printed in the front of the telephone book are easily and often ignored and the same goes for other privacy laws. Further, I am skeptical of technological efforts to ensure privacy. If a person can think up a surefire privacy protection, another person can think up a way around it.

What about the NSA and their snooping? The first question is whether or not it is an invasion of privacy. Although I think the question is worthy of examination and debate, I will stick with my assumption that it is decided and postulate that some types of NSA data gathering are clearly invasive. Consequently, I expect a regulation will be written, the courts will pass down a ruling, or Congress will enact a statute that will force NSA to back off. Or perhaps the invasion will be deemed so egregious that the NSA will be dismantled.

Will I then rest easy that my electronic conversation is private? Not on your life. Some other branch of the US government, some other government, some criminal organization, even some business analytics firm will appear to grab the invasive baton. Worse, this is a democracy and the populace is fickle. Laws change. What is illegal invasion today may be legal tomorrow.

From my experience with technology and the laws on the second page of the telephone directory, I assume that privacy cannot be assured by laws, technology, or human nature. Letters can be opened, seals can be resealed, and cyphers can be broken. I don’t say anything over any telephone that I don’t want overheard; I don’t put anything in an email or a text message that I would not want broadcast to the world; I store my private data in a safe hidden in a corner of the basement. Most important, I think about what is private to me and what doesn’t matter and treat them accordingly. Consequently, my safe is nearly empty and I generally say what I want over the Internet. Electronic communications are all worth using, but they are not and never will be private.