Reflections of a stormy petrel

Google and Facebook DO use our data as they please, and it is only what the law allows of openness and investigation that even allows us to know that it is going on and do anything about it. You could not possibly have thought up a worse argument for a "right of privacy", and neither could Nick Cohen. And what on Earth is wrong with forcing a criminal to incriminate himself? I can see no moral objection against that, only a silly notion of criminal investigation as a gentlemanly game where everyone pulls up their stumps at the end, take off their shinpads and go home; but criminal investigation is investigation into evil things, and I see no reason why a criminal should shield himself behind a supposed right to privacy. As for the state spying on citizens without showing due cause, that is not corrected by another abuse, but by defining the rights and responsibilities of the State.