In a decade, five waves of change swept across the globe stimulating new interest in acoustics. This session examines their effects on the EU, North America and Japan. The Internet caused the first wave‐the EU's privacy Directive 9546EC drove nations everywhere to develop privacy laws, many covering "Speech Privacy." A second wave, in 2000 when the "tech bubble" burst, produced laws to improve financial accountability and forcing organizations to find ways to shield their leaders. A third wave arose in 2001 with the increase in terrorism, producing a surge in security laws that challenge the right to privacy enshrined in the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights. The fourth wave is demographic: racing to build healthcare facilities for "boomers," this giant industry is now wrestling with a "noise epidemic" resulting from decades of neglecting the health effects of noise. The fifth wave came from the "green" movement‐the concept of "indoor environmental quality" has renewed interest in noise as a pollutant. How countries balance such concerns as state security, citizen privacy and human health will be decided by courts but these five waves have catalyzed demand for understanding, insight, expertise, standards, codes, manpower and solutions from the acoustical profession.