inghouse for medical claims to assist insurance companies
             1935 –– the Social Security Act creates a de facto national identification number
             1950 –– the first credit card is issued
             1972 –– electronic mail is introduced
             1974 –– the Privacy Act is signed into law
             1986 –– Caller ID is introduced
             There is also a historic record of privacy protection. Amitai Etzioni, author of The Limits of Privacy, and a professor at George Washington University, describes three historical periods in the formation of privacy rights:
             Stage One –– pre 1890 –– a vague social concept of privacy exists which is linked to property rights, i.e. if you damaged someone's reputation by revealing private details you were harming something owned (a reputation). Private property was held semisacred, a part of natural law.
             Stage Two –– 1890-1965 –– an essay by Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis, considered "the most influential law review article ever published" asserted that privacy was distinct from other rights, particularly property rights. They called it the "right to be left alone" and considered its existence self-evident. Later authorities declared it an "inalienable right." Privacy was considered to be protected by tort law.
             Stage Three –– post-1965 –– legal foundations of privacy are established with cases such as Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972), and Roe v. Wade (1973) which all happened to deal with reproductive issues. Supreme Court decisions established privacy as an unlimited good and paved the way for legislative recognition of the right to privacy.
             Although Etzioni stops with stage three, it's possible that we are now in a fourth stage, as traditional concepts of privacy are challenged by both technological innovations and social concepts of utilitarianism. While America...