Privacy: The biggest, most fundamental issue of our time

Privacy, or the need for it, has come to light to me lately. My brother gave me some very good advice a few weeks ago:

"Don't worry about what you can't control"

This is very true, of course and very good advice.

Not long ago I posted a blog focusing mainly on Facebook: Social Networking or Spy Networking?

One of the main things Facebook does unbeknown to you if you are a computer novice is it will send out information to your friends - things like what you post to other people in the public domains (or their, "walls").

Targeted advertising is another one - if you are a university student you will get adverts offering student discounts and the like. Its a scary thought what information you can give out on the internet.

Targeted advertising is something that we cannot control at our own will. But I would not be surprise if one day this issue comes up in the media one way or another.

So back to the first point: Don't worry about what you can't control. We have the rights to report photos if we do not give our prior consent to publication, or report people posting or discussing our lives as a form of gossip that may be damaging to our reputation.

Facebook does indeed provide this facility, and people can be excluded from even the most minute of details - whether you are single, in a relationship, whether when you break up with your girlfriend it becomes public knowledge or not. It is not at all uncommon for people, even if it is friends out of curiosity, to "comment" on an issue, but then everybody else on the host;'s friend list can see this. With Facebook privacy settings you can do this. You can limit your friends to being able to do nothing but message you if you so wish.

It is, I believe, within our rights to know whats going on in our surroundings and to know what people may know about us which we might wish to withhold from them for whatever reason (be it job, personal privacy, dislike of nosiness, etc).

It is therefore, reasonable to expect to know what we might encounter at any given time. Living in a somewhat public residence (private bedrooms/communal ground floor), it has becoming increasingly familiar to me and important to me to understand and know that people could be in close proximity at any given time and I may not expect this to be the case if I were living in a private home elsewhere where I could expect privacy.

When in the public domain - whether Facebook or in the real world - we deserve to know what to expect and be respected with a certain level of privacy. Facebook, though it provides the possibility for this, is not so outgoing with its privacy policies and I think that they could do more to educate current and new users on privacy control. In the real world, reality, it is unfortunately, sadly a different matter. The most scariest of things is that even living in the most public of places, people are in such close quarters that they could, unwittingly, unknowingly, or God forbid intentionally invade privacy or violate their privileges of use of such a communal area.

Anybody could be walking around. Anybody could turn their back. It's not paranoia. We live in the 21st century and the information age, people just don't leave their doors unlocked anymore out of a sense of naievety. It is about protection, being safe. Knowledge is power.

I'm just glad I have a lock on my door.

Unholy Urine?

Having downloaded a great app on my iPhone - ukPolitics - I have gained access to as handy set of political news items by party and blogs on the bologsphere.

One such blog, from Liberal Conspiracy attacks the Vatican statement that women's urine is unholy and contributes to male infertility.




"The contraceptive pill was polluting the environment and was in part responsible for male infertility, a report in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said on Saturday.

The president of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, Pedro Jose Maria Simon Castellvi, said the pill ''has for some years had devastating effects on the environment by releasing tonnes of hormones into nature'' through female urine.

''We have sufficient evidence to state that a non-negligible cause of male infertility in the West is the environmental pollution caused by the pill,'' he said, without elaborating further."

Laurie Penny, a feminist liberal blogger at LiberalConspiracy.org, attacks the Vatican on grounds of being sexist, and being incorrect in their assertions:

"I don’t see the Pope asking us to stop eating so much junk in order to protect some sacred ideation of male potency. I don’t see that increasingly unfunny former Hitler Youth member and his friends asking blokes everywhere to wear looser trousers and stop smoking. Why would they, when they’ve already decided that by daring to decide for ourselves whether we want to have kids, we’ve symbolically castrated men?The contraceptive pill is one of the most important inventions of the last three centuries, and doesn’t damage the environment so much as the status quo. I’m not a Christian, but if I were I’d get down on my knees every night to thank Ratzinger’s God for the miracle of contraception."

"Oestrogens are present in drinking water from a host of sources, most notably from the by-products of plastics production, and studies have shown that most oestrogens in drinking water are natural – not the synthetic oestrogens present in oral contraception."

You can read Laurie's blog here.


My personal opinion is not something I am going to argue here (just yet)... but I would argue that Laurie is missing crucial points of the Vatican's statement. Short of reading the actual statement (I can't read Italian, I will assume she can't either), I would like to suggest that she took the Australian article at face value and believed every word of it.

What is more likely, is that the Vatican are not disputing the science that there are natural oestrogens in various water sources, but are merely making the logical point that the substances contained in the contraceptive pill may constitute, in part, of women's urine.

It is not a sexist attack, and I'm sure the Pope would also argue that it is best that men do not smoke either - though I am sure he is not so conservative as to outlaw smoking and drinking.

Smoking may damage the sperm given consistent usage and abuse, but it does not interfere with the direct act of sexual intercourse with marriage, as does a contraceptive pill or a condom.

This here is the crucial difference I see. It is not sexist of the Pope, the media spin has twisted it that way and Laurie has obviously been unduly offended. She says she is not Catholic, so I'm wondering why she bothers to take note of supposed Vatican directives if they have no bearing on her life. People will consider the facts for themselves, I believe that we can reach through reason the right decisions on whether to use contraceptives or not, irrespective of religious doctrine or scientific evidence that increased usage of the morning after pill or the use of Thalidomide can be harmful (certainly in the case of Thalidomide, anyway).

The Pope is merely making the point as part of traditional Catholic doctrine that it is wrong to use any artificial means to interfere with the natural act of procreation. Always the Catholic church has been against contraceptives and this has caused controversy in AIDs-stricken countries. Thus I do not believe the statement is saying that women's urine is unholy (or at least the ones that take contraceptives, anyhow), but is merely adding the Catholic church's medical findings (correct or otherwise) into the scientific sphere.

That is how I see the other side of the coin anyway and I value the arguments on both sides over the issue of contraception. Sex is a loving act, and should, where possible be open to the possibility of pregnancy. But there are so many variables, unforseen circumstances where contraception is necessary (in cases to prevent STIs), or where the entire Catholic doctrine, I feel should be called into question when it opposes procedures such as IVF which allow women to fulfill their natural biological instinct to procreate. That, however is another story. But women's wee as unholy? I doubt that is the Catholic position. And even if it were, I would like to ask what Laurie is supposing by highlighting the Pope's Hitler Youth past. What does this have to do with the price of bacon?