I think the good folks at Utne misread the point of my piece on the ACLU looking to science fiction to prepare for future threats to civil liberties:
Stanley published a report called Technology, Liberties, and The Future that drew inspiration from sci-fi novels and movies like Gattaca, Brave New World, and Blade Runner to predict the next affront to civil liberties—many of which, Stanley predicts, will likely come not from an authoritarian government, but from the private sector. According to Serwer, “Stanley's report successfully convinced the ACLU leadership that these plots were rooted in science as much as fiction.”
This is a false dichotomy. Some of the most pressing threats to individual freedom, in my view, come not merely from the private sector or the government, but from where they come together to deny free agency and due process to individuals. We can see this with things like the government outsourcing the infrastructure of the surveillance state to the private sector, or using Boeing subsidiaries to speed people to secret prisons where they can be tortured. Conservatives tend to ignore coercive behavior by private enterprise, and while I'm sure they'd argue that liberals downplay threats to freedom posed by the government, I'd argue that the left has been more consistent in confronting both.
