Marathon Monday, Patriots' Day, and Privacy Law
Throughout Massachusetts, including Boston where crowds awaited their victors, today is “Marathon Monday,” signifying the running of the Boston Marathon, a challenging race with many individuals striving towards a common goal.
Through the streets of Boston, some will run fast, some slow. Regardless (or “Irregardless” as is often heard here), the field of runners couldn’t participate unless there was a shared goal and a protected course laid out for their journey. Shouldn’t we aim for the same in privacy law and policy, a shared goal of protecting individual's privacy rights while defending against infringements along our journey?
Society’s direction over the information superhighway, however, is not anywhere nearly as well laid out and organized as the Boston Marathon. While the Internet is a course we are all racing on more and more, law and policy aren’t the ones leading the pack or setting the pace. Rather, a widening gap is developing between the law (looking back over its shoulder of precedent to gage how it’s doing) versus a Web 2.0 world racing ahead under the quickening pace of Moore’s law.
But privacy’s race is not yet lost—individuals’ rights have triumphed before and are the fabric of our democracy. In Boston, today is not only “Marathon Monday,” it is also Patriots’ Day, a day honoring the first battles fought on April 19th, 1975 in Lexington and in Concord. Ralph Waldo Emerson memorialized this day in this stanza with it's famous last line,
By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled; Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard 'round the world.
