Tiger Woods has always made a concerted effort to protect his privacy. He even owns a massive yacht named "Privacy". While Tiger makes his living based more on his public profile than his ability to swing a golf club, there will now be many who might argue that his desire for privacy was directly associated with his guilt. That he had something to hide all along.
I agree there's a certain responsibility that people like Tiger should have when it comes to their relationship with the public. While Tiger's fame may be based on his golfing prowess, his income is a direct result of his popularity, and the support of millions of fans and consumers.
However I also recognize that Tiger has a right to privacy, the same as any person, even if his wealth and power allow him to exert that right better than others.
Which is not to say that I support Tiger's right to be an idiot. If he wants to use his power and position to do things that the rest of us would neither be able, nor approve of, then he deserves the consequences. Within the spectacle of the coverage around his personal life few have talked about the way in which powerful men feel they can get away with things the rest of us could not. So in this regard I think Tiger should suffer the same stress and humiliation that any powerful man should when they abuse their position and the public trust.
Yet I also think it's important we return to the issue of privacy, and make an effort to separate it from the issue of guilt, or of doing bad/naughty things. Too often the enemies of privacy, or more benignly those who discard privacy, say they are doing so because they have nothing to hide. What is there to be afraid of if you're doing nothing wrong?
A great blog post from security guru Bruce Schneier brought this quote from Google CEO Eric Schmidt to my attention:
I think judgment matters. If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines -- including Google -- do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.
Bruce Schneier offered a wonderful reply to this from an essay he wrote in 2006:
Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance.
We do nothing wrong when we make love or go to the bathroom. We are not deliberately hiding anything when we seek out private places for reflection or conversation. We keep private journals, sing in the privacy of the shower, and write letters to secret lovers and then burn them. Privacy is a basic human need.
[...]
For if we are observed in all matters, we are constantly under threat of correction, judgment, criticism, even plagiarism of our own uniqueness. We become children, fettered under watchful eyes, constantly fearful that -- either now or in the uncertain future -- patterns we leave behind will be brought back to implicate us, by whatever authority has now become focused upon our once-private and innocent acts. We lose our individuality, because everything we do is observable and recordable.
[...]
This is the loss of freedom we face when our privacy is taken from us. This is life in former East Germany, or life in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And it's our future as we allow an ever-intrusive eye into our personal, private lives.
Too many wrongly characterize the debate as "security versus privacy." The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide.
The Tiger Woods situation is
The Tiger Woods situation is a messy blend of two distasteful trends in society; celebrity and privacy violation.
Society's obsession with individuals because of certain talents they possess is silly to begin with. Why should anybody care what people who are good at hitting balls, or reciting lines somebody else wrote, do in their private lives? The depth our modern culture now sinks to in pursuit of such "vital information" has become pure mental illness. The media and modern technology have turned us all into deranged stalkers.
Reporters were camping out on Tiger's front lawn to report every little detail they could get their hands on. Even though the man had always taken efforts to keep his personal life private, they still found plenty. The jackal press scoured through everything they could about this man's personal life because the only thing they care about is profit and there's a large public demand for such meaningless triviality. I mean, it's not like there was a couple of wars or a recession going on that they could cover.
How many people have cheated on their partners? The vast majority of relationships will have at least one partner who cheats. Imagine if they all got the same treatment. Oh, but they're not "public figures". Just who decided hitting balls with clubs is important enough to turn every mistake you make into vital public information? Imagine if we did the same to guys who were good at hitting nails with hammers. How many lurid details could be dredged up on the private lives of people in construction? How many lives could we ruin?
But supposedly, it's alright to single out Tiger for this treatment since we decided his particular talent was worth paying attention to in the first place. We built him up to greatness without consideration for anything other than his talent. We can live vicariously through him. Corporate leaches can glom onto him to sell his mindless worshippers products. Should he ever show signs of weakness, or the public mood turns against him, he can be torn to shreds at any time for the sake of our entertainment and the media's bottom line.
Yet, despite the fact that he has done nothing a majority of people don't do, we still sanctimoniously claim "It's his own fault." or "He asked for it." Those are just rationalizations to justify ripping apart a family for the sake of our amusement. And, thanks to the media, we can do it 24/7, all from a safe distance.
"Oh, he's a public figure. He gave up his right to privacy the moment he allowed us to turn him into our plaything."
Should the public mood ever change to put the private lives of people in your profession in the spotlight, they will say the same thing after picking your life apart. But none of you have anything to hide, right?
Privacy
I agree with the post and Bruce Schneier's response on his post. That being said, I think that when someone chooses to become public, however that is, they loose a certain amount of right to privacy. It is a risk that has to be weighed.
-mike.
Privacy: travelling companion of intelligence
Anyone not bright enough to recognize that just because you want privacy doesn't mean you're hiding something, doesn't, himself, deserve and probably doesn't value the joy of nor the inalienable right to privacy.
i.e. If someone wants to pick his nose in private, or look at photographs of his wife's sister, or read Mein Kampf.....that's his business!
Tiger's business, however, is tricky. Elements of Tiger's life don't "qualify" for privacy. He needs the public's trust. He IS a public trust. So when it comes to earning a living FROM that trust, you'd better be all above board.
So, sure, strip him of his endorsement contracts; he's no longer a suitable nor appropriate spokesperson for anything, but when it comes to "fixing the mess", waaaaaaaaaaaay too many people are thinking they should have a hand in this.
Tiger: are you listening buddy? Go to Madison Avenue, get an agency, have them write some copy, do a couple of "PROPER" press releases (with or without your being present), and put this thing to bed. Pack up Elin and the kids (give her a couple of million bonus bucks if you have to) and all of you head to the Canary Islands for a month!
Sort things out......then, see you at the Masters!
Entitlement
I think your point about the entitlement men with power feel is an interesting one and surprisingly lacking from a lot of the coverage. That said, the difference between Woods and someone like Clinton or hundreds of other politicians is that he wasn't elected by anyone. He swings a golf club very nicely. He doesn't owe the public anything aside from what any public figure agrees to by becoming a public figure -- to act as he sees fit and be praised or called on the carpet as the public sees fit.
His sponsors made contracts with him that were/are mutually beneficial -- money for him, sales for them. If his personal indiscretions have sabotaged that relationship with an individual company, then so be it. I suppose shareholders in those companies might object to potential losses if consumers protest that his behavior has sullied said company's brand, but none of that justifies the amount of media discussion this story has generated.
Does he have a right to privacy? Does anyone with some degree of public power? I guess my feeling is that if you live a public life, you forfeit some of that. You can spend all the money you want trying to protect yourself, but if you've done juicy things, you have to assume someone somewhere is going to invest some effort in digging for and spreading the dirt around. It's part of the deal.
The most amazing thing about his story is that his affairs were kept private for so long, given how many women he was involved with.
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