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  3. The simple act of surrendering a telephone number to a store clerk may seem innocuous— so much so that many consumers do it with

The simple act of surrendering a telephone number to a store clerk may seem innocuous— so much so that many consumers do it with

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问题    The simple act of surrendering a telephone number to a store clerk may seem innocuous— so much so that many consumers do it with no questions asked. Yet that one action can set in motion a cascade of silent events, as that data point is acquired, analyzed, categorized, stored and sold over and over again. Future attacks on your privacy may come from anywhere, from anyone with money to purchase that phone number you surrendered. If you doubt the multiplier effect, consider your e-mail inbox. If it’s loaded with spam, it’s undoubtedly because at some point in time you unknowingly surrendered your e-mail to the wrong Web site.
   Do you think your telephone number or address is handled differently? A cottage industry of small companies with names you’ve probably never heard of—like Acxiom or Merlin—buy and sell your personal information the way other commodities like corn or cattle futures are bartered. You may think your cell phone is unlisted, but if you’ve ever ordered a pizza, it might not be. Merlin is one of many commercial data brokers that advertises sale of unlisted phone numbers compiled from various sources—including pizza delivery companies. These unintended, unpredictable consequences that flow from simple actions make privacy issues difficult to grasp, and grapple with.
   In a larger sense, privacy also is often cast as a tale of "Big Brother" —the government is watching you or a big corporation is watching you. But privacy issues don’t necessarily involve large faceless institutions: A spouse takes a casual glance at her husband’s Blackberry, a co-worker looks at e-mail over your shoulder or a friend glances at a cell phone text message from the next seat on the bus. While very little of this is news to anyone—people are now well aware there are video cameras and Internet cookies everywhere—there is abundant evidence that people live their lives ignorant of the monitoring, assuming a mythical level of privacy. People write e-mails and type instant messages they never expect anyone to see. Just ask Mark Foley or even Bill Gates, whose e-mails were a cornerstone of the Justice Department’ s antitrust case against Microsoft.
   And polls and studies have repeatedly shown that Americans are indifferent to privacy concerns. The general defense for such indifference is summed up a single phrase: "I have nothing to hide." If you have nothing to hide, why shouldn’t the government be able to peek at your phone records, your wife see your e-mail or a company send you junk mail? It’s a powerful argument, one that privacy advocates spend considerable time discussing and strategizing over.
   It is hard to deny, however, that people behave different when they’re being watched. And it is also impossible to deny that Americans are now being watched more than at any time in history.
It can be inferred from the third paragraph that______.
选项 A、the Justice Department has done nothing about privacy issues so far
B、people are now clearly aware how their privacy can be invaded
C、Bill Gates’ email messages have been used against him in his lawsuit
D、cases of intrusion on privacy are the most serious in large institutions
答案C
解析 此题为细节推断题。根据第三段最后一句：你就问一问Mark Foley甚或Bill Gates吧，在司法部控告微软公司的反垄断案件中，正是Bill Gates的电子邮件成为重要证据。因此，可推断出C选项“Bill Gates的电子邮件信息在诉讼中被当作对他不利的证据”为正确答案。
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