Need a little privacy? You may have to drop out of society to get it. If you surf the Net, bank at ATM's, or even shop in grocery stores -- people are watching your every move. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the death of privacy. Also, why every office needs a hidden camera. And, a house cleaner who really gets the dirt on people

Beth Givens directs the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in San Diego, CA. She tells Steve Paulson how routine transactions enable companies to build detailed profiles of individual consumers; how people become victims of identity theft; and how new satellite and video surveillance pose new threats to privacy. Also, Richard Chase, director of communications for the Security Industry Association, tells Steve Paulson that business has a right to monitor customers or employees as long as the monitoring isn't secret, and that municipalities which have installed surveillance cameras have seen up to a fifty percent drop in crime.

Louise Rafkin wanted to be a spy, but she ended up a writer and house-cleaner. She tells Jim Fleming that people have no secrets from their cleaners; that medicine cabinets are a great source of information; and that while she doesn't snoop, she ends up knowing more about her clients' personal (i.e. bathroom) issues than she wants to.

Psychotherapist Janna Malamud Smith talks with Judith Strasser about the difference between privacy and secrecy; our deep human need for a secure, personal refuge; and why we are unwise to expose our public officials to intense and unending public scrutiny.

Distribution dates:

• week of 03/01/98 - hour 1
• week of 02/14/99 - hour 1