One reason I wrote The Dirty Secrets Club was to explore the power, and the allure, of secrets. And naturally in a thriller the secrets people keep are dangerous. But holding onto secrets, and our privacy, isn’t always bad.
Except that’s not what the British government thinks: Every phone call, email, or website visit “to be monitored.”
The proposals will give police and security services the power to snoop on every single communication made by the public with the data then likely to be stored in an enormous national database.
The precise content of calls and other communications would not be accessible but even text messages and visits to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter would be tracked.
Riiiiiight.
Last year Kirkus Reviews interviewed me about the topic. Here’s what I said:
“Most of the secrets in your book tend to be negative and have dire consequences, but there must be some redeeming value to keeping secrets and withholding information.
Absolutely. Keeping secrets can be vital. Withholding information can be critical for security, for people’s safety, for protecting lives and property. Publicizing certain knowledge—nuclear bomb-making techniques or my bank account number—could prove disastrous.
Above that, keeping secrets is at the heart of trust. It’s at the core of the relationship between doctors and patients. It’s the seal of the confessional. It gives people the freedom to speak with unqualified confidence and openness. Moreover, the right to keep secrets is an essential part of human integrity. We all need the ability to keep our desires and even our pasts private. We all need an inviolable zone where nobody can intrude—at least on our thoughts.
We live in an age when privacy is under assault. We’re caught on CCTV when we step out the door. Retailers, or our e-mail providers, sell our personal information in the marketplace. The government asserts ever-expanding powers to know the intimate details of our lives, claiming that if we haven’t done anything wrong, we have nothing to fear. In these circumstances, the ability to keep secrets means we still have the sweet, sharp right to say: It’s none of your damned business.”
And that’s all I have to say to the government right now. I’ll keep the rest of my thoughts to myself. Until doing so becomes illegal.
