Rutgers trial highlights demise of privacy

I'll be watching you.

And if I'm not, the store security monitor will. And the credit-card issuer and the Internet provider and the cellphone company and the ubiquitous traffic cams.

And the watchers are only revving up: One Texas sheriff recently got his own drone, although (highflying karma) the $300,000 spy-in-the-sky did just crash into the SWAT team.

I'd say it's about time to admit the obvious: That glorious legal concept "expectation of privacy" is sounding pretty hollow these days.

Do you really think E-ZPass and MetroCard aren't keeping tabs on you? Paranoiac's Rule of Thumb: Never trust anyone who runs capital letters together in unconventional ways.

No one could have predicted that Rutgers student Tyler Clementi would jump to his death off the George Washington Bridge after learning he'd been spied on by a laptop camera in the dorm with another man. But on Friday, a New Jersey jury found Clementi's roommate, Dharun Ravi, had violated the young man's privacy and was guilty of bias intimidation based on sexual orientation, a hate crime.

The case stirred a national debate about same-sex bullying and teen suicide -- worthy topics, of course. But there's another lesson in the Rutgers case that should get some attention too.

It may be the last gasp of outrage at privacy violated.

Almost every laptop now comes with a high-resolution camera. Almost every new mobile phone can now shoot video. The lines between watching and spying are being erased with technology, ever cheaper, ever easier to conceal.

When everyone's watching everyone -- often surreptitiously -- the very concept of personal privacy is under mortal attack. When everything we do in life is somehow captured digitally, people eventually stop demanding, "Hey, just leave me alone."

PARANOID . . . OR REALISTIC?

1. Every keystroke still lives on my computer.

2. No Facebook message is ever really erased.

3. Amazon cares what I've been reading.

4. Cellphone towers follow me everywhere.

5. Even if I forget, it's all up there in the cloud.

ASKED AND UNANSWERED: Is the boutonniere retiring, too? Or will Gary Ackerman's congressional replacement be expected to carry on the flowery Democrat's lapel tradition? . . . Why not a summer ferry between Sag Harbor and Greenport? Even if there's some pickup traffic at the two ends, won't the actual ferry trips take cars off the crowded roads? . . . Sunday dinner a little tense today at the Cassandros? Manhattan prosecutors say Woodbury lawyer Robert Cassandro targeted several of his own relatives in a $4.6-million real-estate Ponzi scheme . . . A few extra pennies is one thing, but why are some LI gas stations charging credit-card customers an extra $1 per gallon? Can you say "gouging"? . . . St. Patrick's Day on a Saturday? The Cabbage Association may be smiling, but who cleared that with the Temperance League?

THE NEWS IN SONG: Rockwell, "Somebody's Watching Me": tinyurl.com/uwatchme

LONG ISLANDER OF THE WEEK: Chris AlgieriYou don't find too many professional boxers on their way to med school. But Chris Algieri, an undefeated (13-0-0) junior welterweight who lives in Huntington, is putting his MCATs on hold and his record on the line March 31 against Rochester's Winston Mathis at The Paramount in Huntington. "Chris is really excited to fight in front of his hometown fans again," said promoter (and Hofstra grad) Joseph DeGuardia, president of Star Boxing, who's had two sellout boxing nights at the reopened theater/nightclub. "He's a good-looking kid, a kickboxing champion, a Stony Brook graduate and really, really smart. He's psyched."

Email ellis@henican.com
Follow on Twitter @henican