New technologies bring economic and life-style benefits but they also enable unparalleled invasions of privacy.  Increasingly, we hear subtle - and not so subtle - arguments that endeavour to justify surveillance and the erosion of the rights of autonomy, anonymity, association and free speech that are a basic entitlement of every person on Planet Earth.

The abuse of communication and other technologies is systemic in authoritarian regimes.

Meantime, established democracies are being stealthily undermined as laws to protect established privacy and...