As luck would have it, I read the last issue of the MIT Technology Review together with the last issue of Time Magazine. Thus I read Evgeny Morozov’s impassioned defense of privacy in parallel with an interview with Aung San Suu Kyi, dubbed as Burma’s first lady of freedom. He argues that privacy is ultimately about democracy, and she argues that all she does is for democracy and against the Uncles, the Burmese military junta. “Privacy is a means to democracy,” says Morozov, “not an end in itself.” And democracy is an end in itself, it goes without saying. “My very top priority is for people to understand that they have the power to change things themselves,” says Aung San Suu Kyi. Once Burma becomes like America, the interview implies, everything will be hunky-dory. The yawning gap between the two arguments started me thinking, though. Is democracy enough to get rid of the Uncles? I wonder. As for democracy, does it really exist in America? If not, is it worth hoping with both Morozov and Aung San Suu Kyi that the American and Burmese peoples will eventually understand that they have the power to change things themselves? Once again, I wonder. In the meanwhile, it is safe to bet on the Uncles. They are not encumbered with philosophical arguments of any kind.