The point, in my humble opinion, about being free from surveillance is not "I don't do anything wrong anyways", it's about not being titled guilty or possible guilty. I'm not guilty, but I wont be treated as one or a potential one.
People with nothing to hide
121–130 of 268 posts
Re: People with nothing to hide
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you walk in the street, do you choose whether I see your or not? Why shouldn't consent be necessary in that case, but should be in others? EDIT: Who sets the limit between what is implicitly private and public? Let's say I made the decision to add thermal vision to my left eye, and happen to see what you do inside your house. Am I hurting your privacy?
Public/private situation, obviously. When I'm making a phone call from my home (or business!) to another persons' phone, I'm not in the public.
Obviously. But it's only because historically people couldn't listen to it without serious effort and if they did that it usually had malicious intent.
If your phonecall is as easy and neutral to observe as your face or height when you show up on the street you can no longer expect it to remain private.
Same way you coldn't expect conversation between two distant parties to be private before phone was invented an it could only be performed by shouting.
Taking a dump wasn't private act before toiled was invented and probably it won't again be when cameras will be as small as dust particles self powered wireless and everywhere.
Privacy of actions is noT some philosophical absolute. It's just function of what technology is available to how many people.
Re: People with nothing to hide
#123I cannot believe that people have forgotten the reason you have to keep information from your government. Its not that you have nothing to hide right NOW. Its that if someone later got into power that wanted to suppress everybody that didn't think like them, then you have something to hide. Being a sheep is fine, but I want my freedom of expression now and in the future.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
So many people clearly are too stupid to know that means you don't give up your rights now because you won't have them when you need them.
Re: People with nothing to hide
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there a limit to hiding? Should we wear mask all the time, simply to avoid judgement? Why is it that we don't try to hide what is readily visible? Don't you think that it's because readily visible things are easier to accept and tolerate? Privacy makes people think they're alone with their problems. If no one talk about theirs, I guess it's because they don't have any. Should we simply rely on stats to know we're…
It's not "simply to avoid judgement". You're hand-waving "judgement" away as something meaningless. It can and does cause people to treat you poorly. An example: If you work in support for anything like the general public, you either don't swear or keep it to a minimum. You may swear like a trooper in your private life, but it's not worth the social friction to "be open to everyone" in your support job. Basically you…
Being open doesn't work if there's an oppressive government suppressing those who disagree with it.
You soon won't have the choice whether you keep things private or not. Everything is going to become public at one point or another. Never underestimate technology.
Re: People with nothing to hide
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you walk in the street, do you choose whether I see your or not? Why shouldn't consent be necessary in that case, but should be in others? EDIT: Who sets the limit between what is implicitly private and public? Let's say I made the decision to add thermal vision to my left eye, and happen to see what you do inside your house. Am I hurting your privacy?
Yes, I can choose that. I can wear a mask. I can walk around in public and nobody has any idea who I am.
I don't think that's legal everywhere.
Re: People with nothing to hide
#126Questions for people with nothing to hide: 1. Have you ever had an abortion? 2. Have you ever cheated on your husband / wife? 3. Are you currently looking for a new job? 4. Have you ever being diagnosed with a mental illness? 5. Are you currently on anti-depressants? 6. Were you ever sexually abused as a child? 7. Have you ever fancied someone of the same sex? 8. Have you ever had sex with someone of the same sex? 9.…
One important thing to recognize is that: "You can read my text/call logs" !== "You and the rest of the world can know everything about me" So someone saying they "have nothing to hide" doesn't really mean they would answer all the above question publicly, but rather there is no electronic record/evidence of anything they know they want to keep private. And, as another point of discussion, whilst the matters raised i…
Some of these questions can be guessed at by data mining from your email and social network data.
Re: People with nothing to hide
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is sad that you (and most people here) prefer to live in a society where it's socially acceptable to hide who you truly are based on irrational fear of judgement, rather than be open and benefit from the improved communication which publicity offers. We learned to accept and tolerate most directly noticeable features of people. Maybe you don't want to communicate your skin color, your height, your gender or your l…
> Tolerance has no limits. All it requires is some adaptation time. One day, people will be open about their sexuality, religion, political ideologies and feelings, and the world will be a better place. Or some extremist party wins election and this information becomes excellent hit-list for persecution. It already happened to jews a few decades ago.
I won't ever regret saying what I think even if it means some extremist party prosecute me for this. It's better to live an honest life than letting them win by remaining silent.
Let's say some crazy guy kill people that help others. Would you, as a person that help others, regret helping them because it resulted into your death? Nope.
Re: People with nothing to hide
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is sad that you (and most people here) prefer to live in a society where it's socially acceptable to hide who you truly are based on irrational fear of judgement, rather than be open and benefit from the improved communication which publicity offers. We learned to accept and tolerate most directly noticeable features of people. Maybe you don't want to communicate your skin color, your height, your gender or your l…
It's not fear of judgement. It's fear of abuse by potentially tyrannical government.
Then your problem is the government. Privacy doesn't make it disappear.
Re: People with nothing to hide
#129Think about how the NSA helped stop all the killings and maimings at the boston bombing. Oh wait, they didn't - from two super stupid criminals not even trying to hide what they were planning. So WTF good are they doing for all the damage they've done to our society. NSA has become just like the TSA, completely useless theater that hassles everyone and accomplishes nothing. Just wait until they can park hundreds of d…
We have no idea what they actually did prevent, and a single case where they failed demonstrates little. Further, pointing out the failure in the Boston bombing is a poor counterpoint given that to many it would suggest that increased surveillance is necessary, not less.
I'm not American, so I can't really speak to the domestic angle. I am immensely concerned about the foreign angle, however -- if the US government can secretly demand information from firms like Google or Apple, that is extremely concerning from an espionage perspective (economic or otherwise). Every government of Canada employee involved in the F-35 procurement process (or the Keystone XL pipeline, or any other multinational discussion), for instance, hopefully don't carrying Android or iOS or Windows OS devices (back when Obama carried a Blackberry, a Microsoft rep pointed out how dangerous this was having the president carrying a foreign device. Every other nation on Earth needs to heed those words). Even if communications were end-to-end encrypted, simply knowing where each of the people were and who they communicated with -- without knowing the contents of those communications -- would provide simply enormous data to effectively flank any position.
It is ironic to look back to when Chinese firms like Huawei see great suspicion, when we know that the free and democratic United States may be just as dangerous.
Re: People with nothing to hide
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not fear of judgement. It's fear of abuse by potentially tyrannical government.
Then your problem is the government. Privacy doesn't make it disappear.
Americans seem to prefer to limit the government so they don't have to trust them. Other western nations seem more content to foster a notion of responsibility within government and leave it at that. I don't know which is better, but I think I prefer living under the latter.