And yet whether Derek is right or not is unrelated to whether people should have a right to keep things private - of course they should. This is why grellas is

And yet whether Derek is right or not is unrelated to whether people should have a right to keep things private - of course they should. This is why grellas is misinterpreting the post, and this is also why your last paragraph is also a misinterpretation of the post. As to the content of the post itself - there are obvious edge cases where releasing private information is harmful. I don't think Derek is claiming that they don't exists, or that total transparency is the best way to go. Let each of us think for ourselves what kind of information we should keep private because of real, rational and justified reasons, and what is based on irrational fears of exposing something that nobody cares about in the first place. I think you will find that often the majority of what people consider worth hiding is of the second kind. People don't keep private diaries because they believe that "a growing lack of privacy is a serious problem in our society", they keep private diaries because they feel psychologically inclined to do so.