Public disclosure
I can still remember how chilling it was to go to a web site and be presented with a map to my own house. I mean, I'm not quite so feeble that I need one... but I hadn't given 'em my address.

I've gradually gotten used to being able to type street addresses and get driving directions, and I know that home ownership is public information -- but the ease of connecting the dots should be paralleled by increased penalties for the misuse of such information, and so far it hasn't been.

Which is why I'm so pleased to see this article, in which Paul Boutin, writing for Wired magazine, traces the consequences of Matt Smith's decision to reveal John Poindexter's (head of the Total Information Awareness project) home address and phone number in an article for SF Weekly. I mean, I wouldn't wish this on anybody, but as an anonymous voter says at the end of the article:

"If they're making him as uncomfortable as we are, good."

(Heard it from Instapundit.)

By the way: No, the Information Awareness Office logo doesn't make me uneasy. At least, not for the same reasons it does so many other bloggers. The "spooky" pyramid with the eye, odd as it may seem, is on our money (check your wallet -- or do the rest of you not carry one-dollar bills any more?). It's the globe on the right, conspicuously centered on the Middle East, that bothers me. Is that meant to be reassuring?