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Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance

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Re: Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance

#21

Post by ptaffs »

diafygi wrote: post #3

> Economic losses to US businesses due to lost sales and declining customer trust. Whenever I have a discussion with friends on this topic, this is what I focus on. For many people, safety has a higher political priority than privacy. However, when you start saying that mass surveillance kills jobs, it gets much more attention because economic issues are usually on par or above safety concerns. This is why I don't un…

I suggest the NSA work is a big job creation scheme, there are a lot of contractors and vendors providing services and facilities to this (big) branch of the government. A lot of tax dollars are spent on this. And the effectiveness is questionable, because it's secret. We know big federal government IT Contract outsourcing failed to deliver Health Care Gov, I suspect there are a myriad of failed systems we're just not getting to hear about. I talk about cost to the tax payer.

Re: Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance

#22

Post by watwut »

vonmoltke wrote: post #10
diafygi wrote: post #3

> Economic losses to US businesses due to lost sales and declining customer trust. Whenever I have a discussion with friends on this topic, this is what I focus on. For many people, safety has a higher political priority than privacy. However, when you start saying that mass surveillance kills jobs, it gets much more attention because economic issues are usually on par or above safety concerns. This is why I don't un…

> For many people, safety has a higher political priority than privacy. However, when you start saying that mass surveillance kills jobs, it gets much more attention because economic issues are usually on par or above safety concerns. Then there are people like my wife, who thinks disclosure hurt the US politically and economically, thus rationalizing that it is Snowden's fault for revealing all these surveillance pr…

"I have nothing to hide" is in this context synonymous with "I am not associated with wikileaks or any other know activist group able to anger the powerful" and "I am not journalist about to make government angry" and "I am not developing tor or some encryption tool" and "I am not defense layer in important case" and "I am not involved with occupy wall street" and so on.

The spying on commission investigating NSA was already revealed. "Nothing to hide" theory presumes NSA did it just for fun and had nothing to gain.

I have nothing to hide too. However, that is because I am not politically significant. The privacy and protection against agencies are not that needed for random Joe, however random Joe still benefits from fair democratic process even if he chosen not to be active. They are needed for politically active people not currently in power.

Or, imagine something like Petraeus scandal. Ability to see someones mails and ability whose browsing habits are about to become public knowledge is huge. Ability to see opposition or activists or defense lawyer plans can make huge difference even if they are not involved in anything illegal or unethical.

Re: Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance

#23

Post by watwut »

sp332 wrote: post #15
watwut wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebooks ability to use my kids and cat pictures is not comparable to government ability to read political activists or journalists emails. Random person ability to know what school I did go to is not as dangerous to justice as governments ability to read communication of defense in high profile case. By your logic, everyone who make noise about NSA should go underground to keep the right to complain.

Every level of government, right down to the municipal level, can ask Facebook to hand all that data over at any time. They don't even need a court order if they claim it's an emergency or involves a child. https://www.facebook.com/safety/groups/law/guidelines/ Facebook admits to turning over data on tens of thousands of people in the USA. https://govtrequests.facebook.com/country/United%20States/20...

Yes, but I kind of assume that political activist does not keep his super secret emails on facebook.

Re: Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance

#24

Post by cryoshon »

XorNot wrote: post #19
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just that, though. All of the casual information that you post on Facebook, including timestamps and whatnot, can all be used to infer and create a detailed portfolio as to your personality, location, political views, sexual orientation, interests, commonly visited places, employer, etc. EXIF data from photographs alone is a goldmine. There was actually a practical example of a man FOIAing his documents from…

"incriminating". You don't want to use that word. Because if you're actually doing something illegal or immoral, that is not a compelling reason for us not to act on it. The idea that you need to be able to hide your political speech is a problem to start with . You won't be saved from tyranny by that power - if you use it, you already experience it and tyranny needs no reason to kick in doors beyond suspicion. Accur…

Of course you need to be able to hide your political speech; people automatically temper their opinions to conform more with the group or choose to remain silent in situations where everyone's political speech is visible. Without the ability to keep cloistered political speech as a realm to discuss and test ideas without condemnation, the political speech landscape begins to look horrifically uniform and (inevitably, because they control the media) pro-state. To reiterate, if the state has the ability to spy and understand 100% of online political speech, people will self-censor their speech, preventing different ideas from propagating.

This is currently the case-- radical political ideas have been accompanied by state surveillance and attempts at discrediting for a long time, and the current crop of NSA totalitarianism is no different.

Re: Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance

#25

Post by marincounty »

Stefanrio wrote: post #2

I love how people still make noise about NSA, while gladly using facebook.

I sometimes wonder about using any site--including HN. Facebook would be easy to give up(It actually makes me more depressed, and the people I want on there left, or never joined.) HN is hard to give up.

Re: Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance

#26

Post by pessimizer »

imgabe wrote: post #4
Stefanrio wrote: post #2

I love how people still make noise about NSA, while gladly using facebook.

Facebook does not have the power to imprison you or mark you as a suspected terrorist and put you on a no-fly list and freeze your bank accounts.

The NSA can (and does) use Facebook to mark you as a suspected terrorist and put you on a no-fly list. The NSA doesn't have the power to imprison you or seize your bank accounts without the help of a judge.

Re: Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance

#27

Post by cryoshon »

diafygi wrote: post #3

> Economic losses to US businesses due to lost sales and declining customer trust. Whenever I have a discussion with friends on this topic, this is what I focus on. For many people, safety has a higher political priority than privacy. However, when you start saying that mass surveillance kills jobs, it gets much more attention because economic issues are usually on par or above safety concerns. This is why I don't un…

Unfortunately every argument in our society right now must be focused around how the issue at hand relates to money.

Also unfortunately, the "many people" you mention are shortsighted and prone to be scared by the fear-of-the-week. They're not reliable at picking the right things to care about, and are extremely susceptible to being riled up by the media.

I tend to focus on the destruction of the free press that the NSA's surveillance implies. Sources can't be kept confidential, and so nobody will speak to journalists. Additionally, nothing is really "off the record" anymore because of surveillance. Unfortunately, this argument of mine neglects the moribund/state owned mainstream media, which really doesn't have any need for confidential sources or off the record conversations anyway.

Re: Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance

#28

Post by HSO »

vonmoltke wrote: post #10
diafygi wrote: post #3

> Economic losses to US businesses due to lost sales and declining customer trust. Whenever I have a discussion with friends on this topic, this is what I focus on. For many people, safety has a higher political priority than privacy. However, when you start saying that mass surveillance kills jobs, it gets much more attention because economic issues are usually on par or above safety concerns. This is why I don't un…

> For many people, safety has a higher political priority than privacy. However, when you start saying that mass surveillance kills jobs, it gets much more attention because economic issues are usually on par or above safety concerns. Then there are people like my wife, who thinks disclosure hurt the US politically and economically, thus rationalizing that it is Snowden's fault for revealing all these surveillance pr…

> I, unfortunately, can't come up with many good, non-tinfoil rebuttals.

You could make a "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" argument based on analogy: A reveals B to be the rapist of C, hence A is to blame for the punishment that befalls B?! Or, closer to reality (sadly), C gets accused of smearing the precious reputation of B by saying something.

PS: As for the "nothing to hide" fallacy, as if everyone who is concerned had "something to hide"! Perhaps you could remind her that even if she (thinks she) has nothing to hide, an orthogonal reason to care, perhaps the strongest, is that by resisting in whatever ways you can -- by changing your own behavior, for a start -- you contribute to the preservation of liberty.

Re: Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance

#29

Post by tertia »

triangleman wrote: post #13
smoothgrips wrote: post #9

I've often wondered if the NSA is constitutional. Not what they're doing, but the organization itself. The constitution, from my understanding, grants the federal government power to do certain things. Therefore, if the constitution doesn't specifically grant the federal government the power/ability to run, say the NSA (or other federal department), does that not warrant the entire thing unconstitutional?

Technically speaking, you are correct. Practically and legally, everything Congress does is jammed through Article I Section 8 of the Constitution, which grants it the authority to "regulate" interstate commerce. Also, what w4 said. But again if you want to get technical, the Constitution restricts Congress's authority to provide for the common defense to having an army or a navy, but not an Air Force, and not a Nati…

and boy, does this need an amendment: when a farmer can be sued and forced to not grow food for his own family, and the suit is found valid because of Article I Section 8 we have a huge problem.

Re: Personal Privacy Is Only One of the Costs of NSA Surveillance

#30

Post by jessaustin »

XorNot wrote: post #19
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just that, though. All of the casual information that you post on Facebook, including timestamps and whatnot, can all be used to infer and create a detailed portfolio as to your personality, location, political views, sexual orientation, interests, commonly visited places, employer, etc. EXIF data from photographs alone is a goldmine. There was actually a practical example of a man FOIAing his documents from…

"incriminating". You don't want to use that word. Because if you're actually doing something illegal or immoral, that is not a compelling reason for us not to act on it. The idea that you need to be able to hide your political speech is a problem to start with . You won't be saved from tyranny by that power - if you use it, you already experience it and tyranny needs no reason to kick in doors beyond suspicion. Accur…

...then they came for the Facebook users, and I said nothing, because I didn't use Facebook...

b^)

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