Privacy and the "Nothing To Hide" Argument 728
privacyprof writes "One of the most common responses of those unconcerned about government surveillance or privacy invasions is 'I've got nothing to hide.' According to the 'nothing to hide' argument, there is no threat to privacy unless the government uncovers unlawful activity, in which case a person has no legitimate justification to claim that it remain private. The 'nothing to hide' argument is quite prevalent. Is there a way to respond to this argument that would really register with people in the general public? In a short essay, 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy, Professor Daniel Solove takes on the 'nothing to hide' argument and exposes its faulty underpinnings." At the base of the fallacy, as Bruce Schneier has noted, is the "faulty premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong."
Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Interesting)
A few examples (first three are a bit tongue-in-cheek):
Or, perhaps a bit more plainly, "Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance.".
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Funny)
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to catch up on Big Brother
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Informative)
No such hurdle exists. The government makes ex post facto laws, and the supreme court approves them when it gets to see them, regardless of the prohibitions of the constitution. Two examples come readily to mind. One is the prohibition on felons from owning firearms, though the law did not exist at the time of the felon's sentencing and the judge did not declare that a prohibition of owning firearms was a specific part of the punishment to be meted out. I know of no government excuse for this. The other is the registering of "sexual offenders" (Pee on a bush lately? Date someone a year too young on the wrong side of an age line?) where again, the registration was not ordered by a judge and no such law existed at the time, but the law applies retroactively to offenders, thereby increasing the punishment applied by the government. There is an excuse for this one, the argument is that "registration is not punishment, it is just a government function, and therefore this is not ex post facto." The argument is clearly specious, but that doesn't stop them from employing it. See how you feel if you imagine they put your name on such a list. That'll tell you if it is punishment, or just a triviality like listing you as a property owner.
Similarly, the inversion of the commerce clause has been used to create an excuse for the feds to (for example) use the legal system to attack users, growers and vendors of medical marijuana in California. The argument is that the pot, grown in California, distributed in California, used in California, "could" (cough) have been interstate commerce, and so the feds declare they have jurisdiction. The constitution clearly says they have jurisdiction in interstate commerce, not intrastate commerce, and again, we see the government doing anything it wants, regardless of what the constitution says.
I could go on for quite a while, pointing out broad and obvious constitutional violations in the areas of free speech, gun ownership, religion, warrants, article 10 and 14 violations... the point is, though, that the government is completely out of hand and what the constitution says they can or cannot do has long been either a non-issue or one that will crawl through the courts and then ruled into oblivion as have the exd post facto issues.
The constitution offers the means to make changes; but this is not convenient enough, and so we are faced on all sides with unconstitutional law, and told that it'll all be worked out in court if necessary, and in the meantime, comply or face the music.
For your reference: Ex post facto law as the term applies to the constitution, Calder v Bull (3 US 386 [1798]), in the opinion of Justice Chase:
1: Every law that makes an action done before the passing of the law, and which was innocent when done, criminal; and punishes such action. 2: Every law that aggravates a crime, or makes it greater than it was, when committed. 3: Every law that changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed. 4: Every law that alters the legal rules of evidence, and receives less, or different, testimony, than the law required at the time of the commission of the offense, in order to convict the offender.
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Interesting)
Another example may be the retroactive increases to the statute of limitations.
There was a man tried and convicted due to recorded confessions he made AFTER the statute of limitations had run out. Because of his confessions, the legislator moved to increase the statute of limitations RETROACTIVELY, and therefore, he was arrested, and convicted of the crime he admitted to having committed.
I heard a number of people cheering this action, but I couldn't help but see yet another erosion in the freedoms that made the US an example to the world.
Stewed
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?
Held: A law enacted after expiration of a previously applicable limitations period violates the Ex Post Facto Clause when it is applied to revive a previously time-barred prosecution.
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
No, O'Reilly. (Sorry, I just couldn't resist.)
Here's something I wrote for my site [moreilly.com] a while ago. I also posted it to a similar discussion on
Quoth below:
["If you haven't done anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"
Ever heard that one? I work in information security, so I have heard it more than my fair share. I've always hated that reasoning, because I am a little bit paranoid by nature, something which serves me very well in my profession. So my standard response to people who have asked that question near me has been "because I'm paranoid." But that doesn't usually help, since most people who would ask that question see paranoia as a bad thing to begin with. So for a long time I've been trying to come up with a valid, reasoned, and intelligent answer which shoots the holes in the flawed logic that need to be there.
And someone unknowingly provided me with just that answer today. In a conversation about hunting, somebody posted this about prey animals and hunters:
"Yeah! Hunters don't kill the *innocent* animals - they look for the shifty-eyed ones that are probably the criminal element of their species!"
but in a brilliant (and very funny) retort, someone else said:
"If the're not guilty, why are they running?"
Suddenly it made sense, that nagging thing in the back of my head. The logical reason why a reasonable dose of paranoia is healthy. Because it's one thing to be afraid of the TRUTH. People who commit murder or otherwise deprive others of their Natural Rights are afraid of the TRUTH, because it is the light of TRUTH that will help bring them to justice.
But it's another thing entirely to be afraid of hunters. And all too often, the hunters are the ones proclaiming to be looking for TRUTH. But they are more concerned with removing any obstactles to finding the TRUTH, even when that means bulldozing over people's rights (the right to privacy, the right to anonymity) in their quest for it. And sadly, these people often cannot tell the difference between the appearance of TRUTH and TRUTH itself. And these, the ones who are so convinced they have found the TRUTH that they stop looking for it, are some of the worst oppressors of Natural Rights the world has ever known.
They are the hunters, and it is right and good for the prey to be afraid of the hunters, and to run away from them. Do not be fooled when a hunter says "why are you running from me if you have nothing to hide?" Because having something to hide is not the only reason to be hiding something.]
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
So we need privacy just like we need guns, to keep the government honest. It is expensive, in lives lost to criminals and similar, just like gun ownership. But it is the only reason the government will not become a dictatorship.
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm living in Europe where we don't have guns but still we have mostly honest governments that respect, and to some extent even fear, the people. Guns kill people, they don't create democracies. One should think you people (Americans) had learned that by now...
A government should fear the people, not because the people might kill them, but because the people have the power to remove them. If the government has to be removed with guns you already live in a dictatorship.
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
If they can do it to a scumbag, they can do it to you too.
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Interesting)
Having the government keep it under wraps doesn't mean you have privacy.
It means that you are easily isolated.
If everyone is smoking pot, and the government knows through their surveillance who is smoking pot, but for reasons of privacy they do not disclose what they know to the general population, then any time they want to take you in, they can just grab you up, and you will stand alone.
That's what this is all about.
1) Make so many laws that everyone is guilty of something.
2) Convince everyone that it's better to keep things private.
3) Keep watching all the people and correlating data, but keep what you find secret.
4) Now everyone is isolated with their guilt, just like everyone else.
5) Now you can then selectively enforce the laws against those who threaten your power.
This is how totalitarian states are assembled.
Now, you may be a believer in privacy. Personally, I am not.
But if you are going to support privacy, be practical about it. Demand that the data not be collected at all in those cases where it hasn't already being collected, and demand enough transparency of process that you can know absolutely that it never is.
Don't, however, be idealistic about it and let the governments and corporations keep all the secrets they've already collected.
If you've already been caught doing something that is technically illegal, and the proof is in some government database somewhere, which would you rather?
a) Over 50% of the population is also technically guilty of the same thing that you're being judged for doing, but no one outside government offices knows that.
b) Over 50% of the population is also technically guilty of the same thing that you're being judged for doing, and everyone knows that.
Be specific about what you support, and don't be led to think that keeping it as a government secret now that it's too little too late is actually giving you any privacy or security. Because it isn't.
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Funny)
I am a scumbag, you insensitive clod!
sexual offender registry (Score:5, Informative)
See how you feel if you imagine they put your name on such a list.
A few year back or so this teenager was put on a sexual offender registry in, I believe it was Gainsville, FL, something about him "exposing himself indecently" or some such and because the hassazment he went through he eventually killed himself.
The constitution offers the means to make changes; but this is not convenient enough, and so we are faced on all sides with unconstitutional law, and told that it'll all be worked out in court if necessary, and in the meantime, comply or face the music.
Ah but a couple of those methods used in court, Fully Informed Jury [fija.org] and jury nullification [greenmac.com], the courts try to prevent. Even though they were used by Founding Fathers of the USA. Jurors are told they can't look up or investigate themself and if they do they can be disqualified from the jury. And judges tell jurors they must just make a ruling on the facts of the case, they're not supposed to decide if a law is unconstitutional nor are they able to follow their conciousness. Personally I've been called for jury duty twice, hoping to get selected as a juror for a drug trial, so I could vote "not guilty" saying drug laws are unconstitutional. However neither tyme was I even called up for questioning.
FalconRe:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
An even better question is about taking away their right to vote, especially considering that some felonies could easily be considered political crimes, eg smoking a joint in the privacy of your home. Once convicted you can never vote to change the possibly unjust law.
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Who among us thinks the government should be able to secretly spy on us without either permission or reporting to a court? As we've learned in the last few days, as far as the government is concerned, there is no record of secret wiretaps because, hey, they're secret. So the subject of the surveillance is never allowed to see whether or not they have been watched/recorded/wiretapped (this is exactly the argument made by the Bush Administration in Federal Court).
There's this bit in the Constitution about anybody who is accused having the right to face their accuser and the evidence against them in open court. Who among us does not believe this is a good thing? And if the government says that the citizen that was wiretapped is a terrorist, but doesn't have to show any evidence that the target is a terrorist, even to a secret court, is there any way secret wiretapping or surveillance can ever be Constitutional? Is it even important to pay attention to the Constitution any more in an age of a "terrorist threat"?
There are those here who proclaim support of the Bush Administration's secret wiretapping program, so I'd like to hear their answers to these questions. Since the users of Slashdot are mainly people who work very specifically with the technology that is used and is affected by these issues, it's important for us to have this discussion. Many of us will, in the coming years, directly deal with this issue from one side or the other.
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, they're reading. We've all seen them here, complaining about us dirty hippies who think the Bush Administration may have crossed the line with their extra-Constitutional claims and assertions of the power of the "Unitary Executive".
Whether they'll respond is a different question, though. It's tough to support secret wiretapping, even when a mighty, courageous war-president is doing the wiretapping.
whatever (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
How many Senators have available social security numbers, cell phone numbers, daily date planners, daughter's after school program schedules, etc. It's not just about government, when there's so many more people likely to take advantage of private information.
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Funny)
01 The number 1
02 The number 2
03 The number 3
04 The number 4
05 I eat babies
06 The number 6
Oh shit..
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Funny)
>> - Cardinal Richelieu
>
> He doesn't even define line length, so we'll assume length is unimportant:
>
> 01 The number 1
> 02 The number 2
> 03 The number 3
> 04 The number 4
> 05 I eat babies
> 06 The number 6
>
> Oh shit..
See? He uses a programming language with line numbers. Hangin's too good for 'im! But at least he kept his line length below 80 colum--oh shit.
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm in the minority because I like the Bush administration, but I do have to say that Ashcroft pissed me off when they imprisoned Tommy Chong. For the longest time anyone could buy drug paraphernalia in head shops. There was no law against it. Then suddenly Tommy Chong gets arrested ex post facto. They changed the interpretation of anti-drug laws on the fly so they imprisoned a man who did nothing illegal, and had no chance to stop doing it once they declared it illegal. If I lived in California, I woulda been out every day of his imprisonment holding up a protest sign. I'm sure a lot of people would have been there too, but then the government would have just cracked down on them hard because they'd assume they were drug users. The people knew this and never showed up for a rally.
Robert H. Jackson, RIP (Score:5, Insightful)
And for those who don't like Rand, how about this quote, from a guy who preceded Rand by 17 years, and just might have been qualified to have an opinion on jurisprudence, seeing as how it was his entire career and stuff.
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
So YOU'RE the one.
But honestly, for the life of me, I can't think of a reason any group has not to dislike what Bush has done. Liberals hate him by default, he's no conservative, he's done nothing for the libertarians...and he went to war without planning for the inevitable eventuality that the spineless half of the country would stab him in the back when the going got tough.
I'll even give him the benefit of the doubt and say he's a well-intentioned person who's just a bit too optimistic, and that screws things up for him.
But given that, what is there to like? Are you a recently expatriated Iraqi in the U.S. with a Mexican illegal immigrant employer who suddenly needed a Medicare prescription drug plan?
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:4, Interesting)
Do you really want to be represented by a brawling frat boy? Frat boys make enemies unnecessarily -- but hatreds between distant peoples are not so easily healed as those between individuals, and a mistake made now can result in a country which is still our foe fifty years later. Far better to absorb some blows and mete out a measured and effective response than to flail around wildly, trampling over one's stated values and destroying a reputation which has taken centuries to build.
Roosevelt had it right -- walk softly, and carry a big stick. Walking softly in the world of international politics is something done by a statesman, not a frat boy; deciding wisely when to wield the stick, the same.
Easy Answer: (Score:5, Insightful)
The more people, even people working for the government, that have access to your information, the easier it is for you to be turned into a victim. And in the case of things like identity theft, the less you THINK you have to hide, the more attractive of a target you probably are. (Upstanding citizens probably have good credit to exploit.)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
True. The problem we have with identity theft, at least in the U.S., is the mechanism we use to identify ourselves dates to a 1936, a nine digit number which, when tied to your name opens nearly all doors to identity thieves. The key problem with it is it used to identify you which means you CAN'T keep it secret because you have to use it everytime you need to identify yourselves for employment,
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Though it's true that there are good reasons for privacy even if you have nothing to hide, I also wonder if we might want privacy even for those who have something to hide.
I mean, often the whole thing gets framed around issues like terrorism or murder or child porn, and in those cases it's easy to let your emotions carry you away and think that perhaps the ends justify the means. Obviously, we want those crimes to be exposed and the perpetrator to be caught. On the other hand, we've all done something wrong at some point. We all have skeletons in our closets. Maybe there are some young people reading this who think, "I don't have any secrets!" Well wait. Sooner or later, something will happen in your life that you'll end up being ashamed of, you'll commit some act that saddens you to think about, or you'll do something that you just don't want people to know about.
These things might not be crimes. They might be that you have some dirty little fetish, that you cheated on your spouse, or that you screwed-over one of your friends when he/she really needed you. It might just be that you've been a bit greedy or harsh to people who didn't deserve it. Or it might even be that you were in a difficult situation, didn't do anything wrong, but the facts taken out of context could be twisted to make you look bad.
There are plenty of things that are legal that can ruin reputations, destroy relationships, embarrass people publicly, and generally ruin lives. Often, there's no positive purpose in bringing these things to light.
People sometimes fail to realize that civilization runs on forgiveness, forgetfulness, and ignorance. If everyone's skeletons were suddenly dragged into the light, it'd be very difficult to maintain work relationships and personal relationships. If everyone were suddenly punished for everything they'd done wrong, no one would escape a whipping. The way our system works is that a crime must be noticeable, someone must be hurt, and the police and prosecutors need to believe that punishing the offense is worthy of time, effort, money, and perhaps other risks. It's for the best. A perfect judicial system which punished all offenders fully would catch everyone at some point. We'd all be offenders, criminals, and subject to public ridicule at various points in our lives.
In the end, such a system would be harmful and oppressive to our society, while the whole point of the judicial system is to help our society maintain stability by reducing the need for vigilante justice/vengence. I'm afraid that, as strange as it may seem, it's better that some of the guilty are not found or prosecuted, and that some crimes go pretty well unnoticed. There's a reason why courts find people "not guilty" of a particular crime, rather than "innocent" in general. It's far better that many of our bad decisions, indiscretions, and unfortunate situations can be stowed away from prying eyes. We ought to maintain an attitude of faith in men, that all men should be treated as innocent until proven otherwise, in spite of the fact that no one is truly innocent.
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure if you think you're disagreeing with me, but that was included in my thinking. It's easy to get a skewed perspective when you imagine extreme crimes, but extreme crimes are rare. Also, if the crimes are extreme enough (murders, rapists, terrorists) then the crimes are probably going to get attention by law enforcement anyway, even without ubiquitous surveillance. If some kind of "all-seeing eye" run by the government would catch criminals and wrong-doers, it would mostly catch people doing t
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
"Oh, if we give them power, they might be corrupt"... you sound paranoid, you sound like you might be hiding something. Try this...
This is not about what they "might do", its about what they HAVE DONE.
It is well known fact that before the requirement that warrants be issued and that there was review of wiretaps, that the FBI wiretapped none other than the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. Are we to believe that the good reverend, one of the heroic leaders of the civil rights movement was a dangerous criminal and needed to be watched?
Forget the theoretical, we need not look far to find real tangible cases of abuse of power. It is not the ability of power to be abused, it is the fact that it has been abused. The watchers have already been proven untrustworthy. There is more than ample real indisputable evidence.
Sure we can understand why a person in power in the 60s would have felt the need to watch the good reverend doctor. However, doesn't that make all the more certain the case that it is folly to allow their whims to direct such powers without real oversight?
-Steve
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:4, Interesting)
Or you can go back to Nixon's abuses; the reason why the rubber-stamp FISA court was created (that Bush ignores).
Or you can listen to the rhetoric from the right that; people arguing against wiretapping, etc. are guilty of "pre-9/11 thinking". To wit: those people are guilty of pre-1776 thinking. Uncontrolled government surveillance was one of King George III's specialties. No, he didn't have anything like listening devices, or special recording switches sitting at internet routing offices. He had gangs of thugs, called "redcoats" who could enter your home, and take whatever they liked, and charge you with treason if you were friends with guys like Ben Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, et. al. No trial was necessary, and you couldn't demand to see the evidence against you in order to contest it. Frankly, it's why we have a Declaration of Independence, a Constitution, and a Bill of Rights (particularly the 4th Amendment) in the first place. Anyone who forgets these lessons, really ought not be talking about how to best govern this country. They're free to do so; which is a good thing, because those of us who ARE familliar with American history, can readily identify the morons as soon as they open their mouths.
Third definition (Score:3, Informative)
Because you might do something wrong with my information.
All the companies that "lose" your credit card info and others seem to get slaps on the wrist. Having your credit ruined can ruin your life. Now how about if somebody gets access to your more personal info. Suddenly you're an even better target for stalking, extortion, and more. *NOT* good.
Even
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
1/ how much do you earn?
2/ how often do you have sex or masturbate?
it is inevitable they will take offense. Point out to them that their salary can be estimated from their job and their lifestyle, and their sex life is surely perfectly normal and the same as everyone else so if they won't answer they must be doing something illegal or immoral!
in both cases most people would be willing to answer the questions in specific circum
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Interesting)
A few years ago, he proposed a pretty damned good set of statutory reforms that would make it possible for private individuals to sue when their privacy was violated. Basically he proposed setting modest standard dollar figure on damages from improper disclosures that lead to things like ID theft. Prior to that, you couldn't sue to recover costs from the rigamarole these data flubs put you through because although clearly they damage you, nobody could put a dollar figure on the amount of that damage. Without that "per se" damage figure, none of your other costs were recoverable.
This was a pretty good idea, because the basic stance of US law since the 1970s is that it is not up to the Government to fix things if somebody violates your privacy, except in a few egregious special cases. The explicit philosophy since the 1973 HEW Report on data privacy is that it's up to you to bring the malefactors to account, and the only way to do that is by suing. Since you can't sue if the initial crime doesn't have dollars attached to it, you're SOL.
This guy is worth listening to, I think.
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wired: Emaculate Election (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wired: The Eternal Value of Privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially when they think their elected leader was largely chosen by God.
I hope I'm not being too specific here.
Hehe. But there's a good way to get around it -- point out the possibility of the other party being in power in the future!
That's what Republican Senator Larry Craig did on the Rush Limbaugh show. Craig was promoting a bill to add more civil rights safeguards and actual oversight into the USAPATRIOT Act. Rush was asking why such a thing was necessary, and was Craig claiming that civil liberties had been violated by George Bush's administration, and did he have any proof that it had happened. Rather than delving into that trap of pre-prepared talking point responses, Larry Craig pulled a wonderful switch. He said no, he thought Bush was doing a great job respecting liberties, but what if Hillary Clinton became the next President?!
Like magic, Rush was stopped in his tracks. He couldn't possibly argue that Hillary Clinton, Card-Carrying-Commie could be trusted to respect civil liberties based simply on her word! Coming from Rush, that'd practically be like an endorsement for her candidacy! No, suddenly the terrible spectre of a dictatorial Executive run amok with too much power was palpable.
This was a while ago, when the probability of Democratic president didn't seem quite so high. Now I think it should be relatively easy to get the my-party-is-fine-your-party-is-evil Republican types to see the danger. I should hope the same people on the Democrat side should be able to see the truth of the argument quite clearly already. But to actually get results, they'd both have to agree at the same time, and I'm not sure that will happen.
Technology driven ethics? (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be very foolish to abandon a right every time a technology makes it more difficult to protect.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's hardly a "fallacy" (Score:5, Insightful)
When we talk about our "Rights" in terms of those inalienable freedoms that our Constitutional Republic is founded on, we are specifically talking about prohibitions on the GOVERNMENT. Technology does not render our Rights "obsolete". Just because the government "can" spy on us doesn't mean that we have to give them permission to do it.
"Privacy" is my responsibility in the sense that I need to take certain precautions to protect things like my personal financial information, or trade secrets that I don't want to share with competitors. Privacy is my RIGHT, in the sense that I should NOT need to protect myself against unwarranted government snooping.
Re:It's hardly a "fallacy" (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Depends... Is WiFi theft [newswireless.net] illegal in many areas? Why?
Re:It's hardly a "fallacy" (Score:5, Funny)
Like fucking, for instance. Everyone knows that fucking is wrong, yet we keep doing it. We damned sure don't want our children to know about fucking; and we do what we can to conceal it from them. We ought to plant cameras in everyone's homes to make sure that they don't fuck. All these fucking people should be shot --- evil, sinning bastards.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What's the URL to the webcam in your bathroom? Oh, yeah. That lecherous 80-year-old down the street called. He'd like your teenage daughter's school schedule. If you don't want telemarketers calling you at three in the morning, then why did you buy a telephone? Oh,
Way to respond to this argument (Score:5, Insightful)
Better way: (Score:4, Insightful)
This whole question to me can be summed up in a single 15 minute debate I had in an ethics class years ago. One of the (female) students was arguing that surveillance cameras all over public places were a very good thing, because they could help prevent (or at least prosecute) rape/assault.
When I pointed out to her that she is many more times as likely to be assaulted/raped by her boyfriend/husband, and then asked her if it wouldn't make more sense to put a camera in her bedroom. I then asked if we should have the police monitoring her daughter 24/7, especially in their beds and in the bathroom, because again, they're far more likely to be abused by a family member (and in such private places as that)
Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Thats just it, we don't all agree on what is benign. I don't trust the government to decide for me and quite frankly don't consider the government to be benign. I'm not merely afraid of a change in colors in the future, the decision making government of today is stocked almost exclusively with dirty, corrupt, lying, weasels.
Bargaining (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Bargaining (Score:5, Insightful)
Punish after conviction (Score:4, Insightful)
lol at article (Score:3, Interesting)
just ask... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:just ask... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:just ask... (Score:5, Insightful)
And not too long afterwards they also had nowhere to hide.
I'm not Jewish, as it happens
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:just ask... (Score:5, Insightful)
Truly a sad state of affairs. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if my comments here on Slashdot are eventually used against me in some way. A lot of us have posted stuff on this site that might be considered "subversive" in some context, particularly the anti-intellectual-property rants that pop up regularly.
new definition of "short essay" (Score:3, Funny)
Proper response? (Score:5, Funny)
illegal vs ethical (Score:5, Insightful)
If the government is watching, they are obviously looking for anything they don't like. This could be generally illegal behavior, or behavior that is threatening to the continued operation of that institution.
In either case, if you accept monitoring because "you have nothing to hide" you assume that the standards of what should be allowed and whether the institution should continue to exist should rest with the government. To put it another way, you assume they have perfect judgement in regard to what should be happening in regard to monitored behavior of citizens.
So (for example), maybe the government should be overthrown (because it does some badness such that it deserves to be disolved). Obviously any existing government that needs to be overthrown isn't going to support that notion. By targeting the government's ability to monitor, we better allow for the possibility that a government that is no longer serving the needs of its people might get overthrown (I'm assuming, for the purposes of this example, that "being overthrown" is probably necessary on some regular basis).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Off-hand, the main problem with that argument is that it assumes that legal behavior and ethical/moral behavior are exactly the same.
You're still giving them too much credit. The argument also assumes that perfectly *legal, ethical and moral* behavior/characteristics could never be used to harm their owner. Counterexamples of things I wouldn't want my government/employer/friends/insurance to know about me that break no ethical, moral, or legal bounds:
The types of sex toys I use with my wife
Medical condi
Any power given to the good cops... (Score:5, Insightful)
The Useful Idiot (Score:4, Insightful)
Cut the cutsie sayings (Score:5, Insightful)
"The right of the people to be secure in their person, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."
In the US, this is the foundation of privacy. It is a mandate to those who govern from the people who allow them to govern. If you really need to ask why, your ignorance of history is so staggeringly complete that it can only be attributed to being negligently willful.
Re:Cut the cutsie sayings (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's their loophole right there in bold face. They just continually dilute the definition of "unreasonable". Search warrents were to burdensome, so the patriot act gives us NSLs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Le tter) which require no judicial oversight. Similarly for wiretaps. If you question it, then you're the enemy. You support th
My from-the-hip response to "nothing to hide" (Score:3, Insightful)
My response to people who say "You've got nothing to hide, what's the problem?" is this:
It's not a matter of having nothing to hide. Even people with nothing to hide nonetheless have a lot of things that they don't want broadcast to the world. It's called one's personal business. A really good example is buying your wife an anniversary gift. There's absolutely nothing to hide there, but you still don't want her finding out about it until you give it to her. There's many things in life that're nothing to hide in the sense the "nothing to hide" crowd is using the phrase, but that nonetheless you want to keep private (at least from all but a selected few).
Privacy is dead. Get over it. (Score:3, Interesting)
A famous quote by a powerful man. I don't think I need to cite source.
But it's true, and pretending otherwise is just more head-in-the-sand thinking. What's important is what we actually DO about it. How can we prevent the bad stuff with lack of privacy from happening? Nearly 10 years ago, an insightful author at then-amazing Wired answered this question [wired.com] in a way I've not seen matched or beaten anywhere else.
It's not the fact of being private or not, it's what's done about it and why. If we keep pretending we have something we don't, we'll be hurt by things we didn't know were there. We couldn't deal with slavery until we acknowledged that it existed and was a problem. A smoker in denial will remain a smoker until he/she can acknowledge his/her status as a smoker.
I, for one, find it far more effective to deal with what is than what I'd prefer there was to work on, and the reality is that privacy is dead.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Why that's right. I expect everyone here knows that the quote is attributed to Scott McNealy, then CEO of Sun Microsystems. According to a reporter for Wired [wired.com] he was speaking at the launch of Sun's Jini technology in 1999. It's just that by saying so up front, you can avoid sounding like an insecure thirteen year old putting on a pose to try and hide the fact that he's too lazy to type three words into Google.
Again according to Wire
Why does the government have something to hide? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why does the government have something to hide? (Score:4, Insightful)
Flip Side (Score:5, Interesting)
I call it the halo effect. Watch it, next time your driving. People cut you off, don't use their turn signals, speed, basically drive like idiots. Place a patrol car in the mix, (in fact the second it comes into sight of any of the aforementioned asshole drivers) and suddenly, without warning, little halos appear over every car and everyone is just a cute little perfect driver doing what they're supposed to.
I love making the analogy of drivers to general society because it allows you to observe people acting privately in a public place. The isolation of the driver from everyone else (aka no real communication) gives this sense of "tunnel vision" where basically people drive as if they're the only ones on the road at all, and somehow the other cars are not really people but automatons just getting in the way.
So the major premise of the "I've got nothing to hide" crowd, is that plenty of people do, and the ones that squirm in their seats are usually the ones who just might
I'm all for privacy, and don't want too much of my rights eroded away, but honestly, I really don't have anything to hide. I think it's the level of monitoring or whatnot that scares people.
I didn't read the essay. But I can imagine the guy is outraged at people's nonchalance. "I've got nothing to hide" may generally be perceived as "I don't care", and that's what the author is most likely trying to avoid.
Give me the middle ground
Just follow them around recording them... (Score:4, Interesting)
I guarantee that nearly everyone who saw such footage of themselves would be horrified beyond belief. When I was in high school I did a presentation on why video surveillance of innocent people was wrong. I hid a camera (which was very hard given the size of the average camcorder in 1995) in the classroom where it recorded, from a side vantage, my presentation and the class receiving the presentation unawares. I had the instructor's permission so that someone was aware of what I was doing. To underscore my point, to end my presentation I walked over, exposed the camera for the class, stopped the tape, took it out, and put it in the VCR, to play it for the class for a few minutes. The students, by and large, were irate. Even (maybe especially) those who were defending the position that surveillance was okay were mad. The principal received at least four telephone calls from angry parents, and several students complained quite angrily or tearfully to the teacher how what I did was wrong. There was no punitive action taken upon me (the Principal was very cool about some of this sort of thing), and the students learned a valuable lesson in privacy.
If you've got nothing to hide... (Score:5, Funny)
If you've got nothing to hide, then you won't mind taking off your clothes for me.
Don't know about how well it works in a realm of debate and discourse, but so far it hasn't gotten me anything but slapped in the singles bars.
Just because... (Score:3, Insightful)
I am sorry but the least people know about me the better. I don't want people knowing everything I do or don't do. I don't want the government to use whatever data mining they have gathered about me and use that later. We can't stop terrorists by data mining. We can't stop terrorism because it is abstract. Start taking away any more freedoms in America it will start pissing more people off and homebrew terrorism will start happening.
Unless we can make the government completely crystal clear and see exactly what they do behind closed doors...they aren't welcomed into mine.
Who knew that minority report could feel so real these days. Americans could care less about these topics. As long as they have American Idol and entertainment...they could care less about our government and our freedoms. One of the best quotes from a movie and it holds true today.
Gracchus: Fear and wonder, a powerful combination.
Gaius: You really think people are going to be seduced by that?
Gracchus: I think he knows what Rome is. Rome is the mob. Conjure magic for them and they'll be distracted. Take away their freedom and still they'll roar. The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate, it's the sand of the coliseum. He'll bring them death - and they will love him for it.
-gladiator
Lame article ... (Score:4, Insightful)
The only thing that I took from his publication is that he doesn't like the Bush Administration. That's fine with me; everyone is entitled to his own opinion. My problem is that this issue as such is far greater than any current administration. It's one of the fundamental questions about the relationship between the individual and the state, and deserves to be treated as an issue of profound significance.
If this is the best justification of our right to privacy, then we're in serious trouble.
My take (Score:4, Interesting)
It all comes down to WHO has this information (and for what purposes). EXAMPLE: I, for one, have a big problem with public security cameras. Why? I really don't give a sh*t if everyone watches me walk/drive/ride my bike down the street. The problem I have is that EVERYBODY can't watch me, as I could them. A few "privileged" people can. That gives them a certain power over the general public, which is bad (IMHO).
But why? Who cares if some guy/gal can watch me and others can't? Well, the thing is, we're all human. We all have the same fallacies, including when we're given a certain amount of power over others, we tend to want to use it. Some might just laugh at people picking their nose at a stoplight, others might start noting when certain people go certain places. This creates a very dangerous situation. Certain people will have a lot of information about other peoples' lives, which makes me, anyway, very uncomfortable. What if I have an argument with someone in another car at a stoplight? What if that person is the security monitor's friend? What if that person asks the security monitor to find out where I go after 5:00pm every day, so he can meet me there to put a bullet in my head? That gives them unfair advantage, because I cannot do the same thing. They are monitoring my life, but I can't monitor theirs. It's unbalanced, and unfair.
I believe Google is a GOOD company. They collect information about EVERYONE and EVERYTHING available on the web and beyond - and they allow EVERYONE access to it, not just a few people who might get power trips and use the information to their advantage.
I have no problem with having cameras IN MY HOME, as long as EVERYONE ELSE does too, and it's all available online for anyone to view - no special privileges, no "Access denied", and let's take it a step further and allow you to see who's viewed your cam and at what time. That's not 1984, that's just using technology in a fair manner.
I also have a problem with Myspace and "Private" profiles. That is completely counter-productive for a social networking site. The point is to meet other people, find out about them, etc...but if their profile is set to private, you can't see but their default pic and their headline. That just makes other people want to retreat into "security" mode because it makes them think they should hide their information, too. Now, you don't have a social networking site - you have a bunch of people who have advantage over others, because they can see your info but you can't see theirs in exchange.
I have a Youtube profile (link in my sig). I upload vlogs about my personal beliefs, things in my life, etc. because I saw others who were open with themselves and felt like I could benefit from doing the same thing. And I did. I feel so good about being able to put myself up where ANYONE can see and hear me speak my mind - it's made me a much stronger (and open) person. It creates a stronger community, based on openness and equal power over information. I can watch other peoples' vlogs/videos, and see what kind of person they are too. I've made many friends over YT, and I encourage everyone here to consider vlogging.
Now if YT made people start paying for the privilege of uploading videos, that creates separation too. Not everyone has 20 bucks (or even 5 bucks) a month to spend on something like vlogging. It would allow a certain subset of "privileged" folks to express themselves, and others not. That's bad.
It's the same with software. We *all* know open-sourced software is good because it allows anyone to see how it ticks, and modify it for themselves. But take what Microsoft did with the BSD TCP/IP stack (under the BSD license) - they took the code for free, and made billions off of it, giving nothing back (AFAIK). It creates imbalance, and imbalance is bad.
You give what you take, and that makes the world thrive.
Privacy and the Bush Administration (Score:5, Funny)
Therefor the Bush Administration's refusal to allow staffers to testify to congress regarding the Justice Department purge proves that they do have something to hide.
I have nothing to hide if ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Quite simple: Who said laws stay the same? (Score:3, Insightful)
Find out their hobby and start constructing around it.
They like fishing? So, are you sure your lure isn't found to be "cruel to animals", or that the sink you use isn't going to be seen as environmentally threatening? Or that fishing isn't outlawed altogether because your enjoyment doesn't matter concerning how cruel it is to the fish?
It's model trains? Say, are you aware that the information you love to download about those tracks belong to the company that made them, and that they can come after you for infringing their copyright? And the buildings you use for your almost-like-real miniature towns, they look incredibly well suited as a three dimensional map for a terror attack. You sure that "model train club" isn't just a front?
They're into traveling? So you don't mind the feds to know where you go, that's fine... but you're aware that the political climate can change in many parts of this world quickly, right? Say, you traveled a lot to Gernericstan, and they just recently turned into another Afghanistan... care to tell us what exactly you did every time you went there?
At the very least the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" attitude can get you into a lot of unpleasant situations. Laws change, and not to the "better". They're more and more constricting, less and less freedom to do what you please is left, and sooner or later there will be a law that makes you a target, because what you used to do is suddenly very illegal. Smoking is on the verge of being outlawed in some countries. Would you like to be known as a heavy smoker? It's quite addictive, so the feds will KNOW that you don't simply quit, or that it's very, very hard to. They will want to watch you, just in case you fall back into your old habit.
And this can happen in many ways. Nobody just lives to work, people have their pastimes and hobbies. It can happen that your hobby is suddenly outlawed.
And, just to get Godwin into this posting somehow, the first (that I know about) to come up with the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" spin was Joseph Goebbels. If you don't know the guy, look him up. And ponder for a moment what this means.
If complete surveillance is in place, there is no chance to overthrow an oppressive regime. Any kind of dissent will be immediately identified and eliminated. By allowing it to happen, you throw yourself to the whims of the state. Essentially, you're giving up your liberty. If you trust your country and your government, most of all, if you trust it not to change in a way you wouldn't enjoy, it's no problem.
For me it is a problem. I cannot predict the future.
In hiding (Score:3, Insightful)
This article is embarassing (Score:3, Interesting)
By neglecting these points, he just engages in intellectual puffery. He hasn't argued at all against the "I have nothing to hide" argument, because he hasn't even addressed it. Chicanery.
Geese ... Gander (Score:3, Insightful)
Things get simpler (Score:5, Insightful)
It could be people listening in on your phone calls.
It could be people working to ruin your reputation or to spoil a relationship you have with somebody, by selectively chosen but roughly true stories (false light).
It could be somebody secretly watching you.
It could be somebody openly dogging you as you go from public place to public place.
It could be somebody looking over your shoulder as you conduct a bank transaction.
It could be your neighbor's spotlight shining in your bedroom window at 3AM.
It could be somebody failing to uphold a responsibility they have to treat information they hold about you in confidence.
After years of thinking about this, I have come to this conclusion: all these things are in one way or another crimes against autonomy. Even the neighbor's spotlight it a crime against your right to direct your own attention. As a result, I came up with this definition (which I describe further in a blog entry [blogspot.com]):
This covers an important point: privacy is not just about being "left alone". It is about being able to engage with others without third parties (like the government, your boss, or your next door neighbor) sticking their nose in where it doesn't belong.
So, the idea behind "You have nothing to hide" is really much, much more sinister than it sounds. It implies, in effect, that you are nobody, at least when it comes to making decisions for yourself. It is not for anybody else to decide what you should or should not hide.
Best.Essay.Ever on the value of privacy (Score:3, Informative)
Sad part is that 4 years on Canadians have been forced to adopt what he warned about, and the US has gotten worse. Thing about the proverbial frog in the stovetop bath is that everyone thinks that if you know about the frog in the pot, you can't possibly be the frog in the pot.
A few extracts:
"In the months immediately following September 11, I was in fact quite optimistic that, with regard to privacy, the Government was on the whole being balanced and thoughtful in its response. But now the floodgates appear to have burst. Now "September 11" is invoked as a kind of magic incantation to stifle debate, disparage critical analysis and persuade us that we live in a suddenly new world where the old rules cannot apply. If Parliament and the public at large have been slow to react, it is probably because for most people, most of the time, privacy is a pretty abstract concept. Like our health, it's something we tend not to think about until we lose it - and then discover that our lives have been very unpleasantly, and perhaps irretrievably, altered. But though we tend to take it for granted, privacy - the right to control access to ourselves and to personal information about us - is at the very core of our lives. It is a fundamental human right precisely because it is an innate human need, an essential condition of our freedom, our dignity and our sense of well-being.
"The truth is that we all do have something to hide, not because it's criminal or even shameful, but simply because it's private. We carefully calibrate what we reveal about ourselves to others. Most of us are only willing to have a few things known about us by a stranger, more by an acquaintance, and the most by a very close friend or a romantic partner. The right not to be known against our will - indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves - is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom.
But there also will be tangible, specific harm. [..Examples given...]
If information that is actually about someone else is wrongly applied to us, if wrong facts make it appear that we've done things we haven't, if perfectly innocent behavior is misinterpreted... we will be at risk of finding ourselves in trouble in a society where everyone is regarded as a suspect. By the time we clear our names and establish our innocence, we may have suffered irreparable financial or social harm...If we have to live our lives weighing every action, every communication, every human contact, wondering what agents of the state might find out about it, analyze it, judge it, possibly misconstrue it, and somehow use it to our detriment, we are not truly free..."
" One of the clearest lessons of history is that the greatest threats to liberty come not when times are tranquil and all is well, but in times of turmoil, when fidelity to values and principle seems an extravagance we can ill afford. History also teaches us that whenever we have given in to that kind of thinking, we have lived to regret it. At the time, the loss of freedom might seem small, trivial even, when place
parable from usenet 1993 (Score:5, Insightful)
Subject: A Parable.
References: <1993Apr20.013747.4122@cs.sfu.ca> <1993Apr21.210353.15305@microsoft.com>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Partnership for an America Free Drug
scottmi@microsoft.com (Scott Miller (TechCom)) writes:
>Stikes me that all this concern over the government's ability
>to eavesdrop is a little overblown... what can't they do today?
>My understanding is that they already can tap, listen, get access
>exc. to our phone lines, bank records, etc. etc again.
Well, they can't listen in on much of mine, since I already use
cryptography for much of my electronic mail, and will start using it
for my telephony as soon as practical.
However, allow me to tell a parable.
There was once a far away land called Ruritania, and in Ruritania
there was a strange phenonmenon -- all the trees that grew in
Ruritainia were transparent. Now, in the days when people had lived in
mud huts, this had not been a problem, but now high-tech wood
technology had been developed, and in the new age of wood, everyone in
Ruritania found that their homes were all 100% see through. Now, until
this point, no one ever thought of allowing the police to spy on
someone's home, but the new technology made this tempting. This being
a civilized country, however, warrants were required to use binoculars
and watch someone in their home. The police, taking advantage of this,
would get warrants to use binoculars and peer in to see what was going
on. Occassionally, they would use binoculars without a warrant, but
everyone pretended that this didn't happen.
One day, a smart man invented paint -- and if you painted your house,
suddenly the police couldn't watch all your actions at will. Things
would go back to the way they were in the old age -- completely
private.
Indignant, the state decided to try to require that all homes have
video cameras installed in every nook and cranny. "After all", they
said, "with this new development crime could run rampant. Installing
video cameras doesn't mean that the police get any new capability --
they are just keeping the old one."
A wise man pointed out that citizens were not obligated to make the
lives of the police easy, that the police had survived all through the
mud hut age without being able to watch the citizens at will, and that
Ruritania was a civilized country where not everything that was
expedient was permitted. For instance, in a neighboring country, it
had been discovered that torture was an extremely effective way to
solve crimes. Ruritania had banned this practice in spite of its
expedience. Indeed, "why have warrants at all", he asked, "if we are
interested only in expedience?"
A famous paint technologist, Dorothy Quisling, intervened however. She
noted that people might take photographs of children masturbating
should the new paint technology be widely deployed without safeguards,
and the law was passed.
Soon it was discovered that some citizens would cover their mouths
while speaking to each other, thus preventing the police from reading
their lips through the video cameras. This had to be prevented, the
police said. After all, it was preventing them from conducting their
lawful surveilance. The wise man pointed out that the police had never
before been allowed to listen in on people's homes, but Dorothy
Quisling pointed out that people might use this new invention of
covering their mouths with veils to discuss the kidnapping and
mutilation of children. No one in the legislature wanted to be accused
of being in favor of mutilating children, but then again, no one
wanted to interfere in people's rights to wear what they liked, so a
compromise was reached whereby all homes were installed with
microphones in each room to accompany the video cameras. The wise man
lamented few if any child mutilations had ever been solv
Have you ever played that game... (Score:4, Insightful)
We've all played that game, and we all know how easy it can be to string someone up with their own words when the context has been subtlety altered. Now imagine that it's not your friends trying to embarrass you for fun, but it's a prosecutor and he's trying to send you to the deepest, darkest hole he can find. What you said and what you did that got recorded in some computer database may be perfectly innocent, but that doesn't mean someone sufficiently motivated -- or paranoid -- can't twist your actions into something that appears very sinister to twelve of your peers. *That's* why privacy is important.
The Best Privacy Test..... (Score:5, Interesting)
SO, whenever someone counters my 'right to privacy' argument with "Well, what do YOU have to hide?", I always say:
"Absolutely nothing. Just because I don't want someone knowing everything about me and my habits doesn't mean that I have anything to hide.". Then I ask, "I'd like to look through your credit card statements, FasTrack statements, telephone records, bank records, internet records, computer hard drive, your house, your dresser, and the dog house. Will you let me?"
The response has ALWAYS been "No way. Why should I?"
To which I reply, "Well, what do YOU have to hide?"
I always get an irritated look after the final line. But it proves a point: Just because someone doesn't want you snooping through their life doesn't mean that they are hiding things.
It's the people doing the snooping that have things to hide.
Finally Someone Said It (Score:4, Interesting)
It drives me crazy because it's NOT about whether you have some dirty little secret you want to hide. It's about freedom. That's what privacy really is. Freedom that we are supposed to be guaranteed under the Charter/Bill of Rights.
Given the track records of both the Canadian and American governments, do you really trust them with the power that this information gives them over your lives? It's not just about terrorists. In Canada, the health care system is publicly funded. So, what happens if data mining turns up some unhealthy habits- like say you order takeout every night, or that you engage in dangerous sports.
How many people make minor upgrades to their house or property without the proper permits? Underage drinking, failing to file 100% of your online or out of state/country purchases on your tax return, etc. Most people do some kind of softly-illegal thing that the government would love to know about. And since the MPAA has the government wrapped around their finger, how about they peak into your life too.
It may seem paranoid to list these things- but forget for a minute that the government can be corrupt sometimes. Imagine we have a perfect government. You still don't want them knowing everything about you- for the same reason that you don't live in a house with glass walls, and for the same reason you don't want your portable phone being picked up by your neighbour's baby-monitor. Privacy is important and precious. It deserves more than the apathetic attitude of "I have nothing to hide"... because anyone who says that is a fool or a liar.
And the number one reason... (Score:3, Insightful)
I consider the most important reason for privacy to be simple human dignity.
We all deserve a chance to live our lives with self-respect, and that is impossible when we cannot conduct our personal affairs with discretion. Being forced to disclose every detail of one's life is degrading to almost any human being.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, he really doesn't. He doesn't even understand it. For instance, he says "If you shove me, you are not leaving me alone. You may be harming me, but it is not a problem of privacy." It is a problem of privacy; one person's right to shove another is strictly limited by the idea of permission, that is, the existence of an inherent boundary, and the permission - or lack thereof - to cross that boundary. This is the same concept as putting a letter in an envelope. There is an inh