This paper summarizes the concept of privacy, reviews some of its underlying tenets and axioms, illustrates the drift toward a national counterprivacy posture in terms of events involving the Social Security number (SSN), and discusses new faces in terms of three case histories: the California action to require SSNs on driver's licenses, the effort by telephone companies to introduce calling number identification, and the aggregation of public records into dossier databases. Remedial actions by government and legislators are suggested.