Our phone conversations are logged. Lasers from satellites can decode conversations based on vibrations in window glass. The sound of keystrokes can reveal the content of what's being typed with surprising accuracy. Is the only anonymity to be had in sheer numbers, in the miniscule chance that the laser will point this way? In leading a life devoid of notoreity?
A sangha member who is a foreign national glimpsed Chozen's dossier when she was asked by the HS folks at customs to provide a reference. (She had been entering the country too many times and staying for too long for their comfort.) A few keystrokes, and there were old photographs of Chozen, and data going back years. Years.
Of course you and I are not Zen masters, or the figureheads of brief but large worldwide peace movements. But still. I know I'm supposed to feel safer, but I don't.
The information is probably out there already, thanks to the internet. Google me and you can easily find my date of birth; and my parents' names and dates of birth (thanks to a family genealogy website-without-a-clue). You can see a petition I signed to halt the genocide in (current location). Plus publications, poster presentations, family photos...blogs.
Oh, hello!
To be known, but not too well. I suppose we all want that.
Things never turn out as you might think. Who could have forseen that writing a letter and dropping it in the mail would one day offer the best chance of a little privacy?
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