Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant

I'm not making that mistake. I fully realize that the US government is comprised of many arms that even though some of those arms might have our collective best interests at heart this may not be the case for all of it.

> We're talking about hundreds or thousands of individuals spanning multiple generations.

So what. That only increases the chances of abuse, it does not diminish them at all. Just like in Nazi Germany there were plenty of people still fighting the good fight and at the same time employed by government. No government will ever be 100% rotten. But it does not have to be like that to do damage.

> I'm not going to worry about government metadata collection because of something that happened during the Eisenhower administration.

Because, let me guess that was too long ago and now it's different?

> Each person and group of people should be evaluated based on their own behavior and merits, not the reputation of the organization that they are affiliated with.

This is where you're flat-out wrong. Governments (and big corporations) have a life-span much longer than that of the individuals that are making it up, and as such we should look at them as entities rather than as collections of individuals.

If you'd be right then North Korea would not exist today as we know it (and neither would China, Iran and a bunch of other countries). The way these things work is that the general course will be slightly affected by the individuals but the momentum in the whole machinery is enormous. Think of it as a cable in which individual strands are replaced but the identity and purpose of the cable remains. Eventually you have a completely new cable and yet, nothing has changed. And in this case the entity has a huge influence on which parts of it will be replaced by who.

> It looks to me like the US agencies, and the Five Eyes in general, are capable people who are just doing their jobs.

That's a very very scary thing to say. "Just doing my job" has been used time and again historically to distance oneself from the responsibility taken when performing certain actions. Just doing your job is not the standard that needs to be met.

> They aren't bothering me and I'm not bothering them.

And most likely they never will.

"The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing"

> The past actions of the US government or hypothetical scenarios based on historical examples just aren't very convincing.

Of course they aren't. After all, it's not you that is personally inconvenienced in any way.

> Anything could happen. But I'm not going to concern myself with it until I see some evidence.

And none that will convince you will ever come. Because if it did it would be too late for you to change your stance anyway.

Written in 1944, there is a specific passage where he argues against this "but I have nothing to hide!" argument, only criminals benefits from hiding, right ? He talks about how a simple citizen who never had trouble with the law should stay perfectly free to conceal his identity whenever he likes for whatever reason, and laments how this very idea already died.

The extract is available online [1] in French, the google translation [2] is not that good.

[1] http://www.books.fr/quand-bernanos-predisait-une-societe-sou... [2] https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u...

Maybe privacy is a right granted by someone. But do I need to fight for all rights? Can I not trade some for some others? E.g. I don't want to live in a completely free market, becaues in a completely free market thiefs and bullies always win. In our real life markets at least they need a lawyer's license first, which stops some of them from succeeding.

Does it really underpin freedom of expression? Is complete freedom of expression something that is worth fighting for, something people want? Look at something where expression is nearly completely free: Clothes. Most people tend to wear what other people wear.

Free society. What is that? Why do I need it?

Democratic society. Doesn't the current global development show that democracy is failing us? Every system comes to an end, and democracy certainly is behind the top of the hill.

I stopped reading after that sentence. If a blog post doesn't even think about the nuances of what they are talking about, there won't be much content anyways.

Just a little side note: I was in China three times now. Many people consider China very unfree, very undemocratic. But I see people there having more hope, more optimism and more opportunity to develop their dreams than we have in the west. And mobile internet is developing bigger and faster there than anywhere else, despite having nearly everything run via one mobile, government observed app: Wechat. In some regards I wonder if it is really "despite" government control or "because".

Say your bank account information was stolen and someone used it to blackmail you because as you said it would have, "implications in some social aspects".

Say the country you live in converted to a religion you are not part of or want to be any part of. Imagine if they had a record of your beliefs and used it as a handy tool in mass genocide.

Say someone working for the government or a start up was jealous of something you had, and used their access to take your information in order to discredit you.

Say you medical information was sold by a fitness start up that went bust and sold to insurance companies to bump your premium.