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The headline should be re-written: "With Snowden in the background, privacy and security take a back seat to power". That's what it's really about.
I'm frightened that 63% of citizens in their sample value "protection" over privacy. When I've tried to explain the need for privacy to those outside of my circle, I always find my explanation lacking due to my inability to articulate why exactly privacy is important to me. How have others been explaining why privacy is important?
"Your rights matter because you never know when you're going to need them."
privacy = rights
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> "I'm 27, living in Toronto. Most of my acquaintances say things like "I have nothing to hide so it doesn't bother me", or "Dropbox is just so convenient, it doesn't matter about the NSA". It's upsetting." I've been pretty angry about the revelations over the last year. I'm a private person and don't want the government violating that. However - even though I don't say the things your friends are saying I still use…
Right - that's fair, in my opinion. For work, I use closed-source software including Dropbox too. I should specify that I agree this is difficult or impossible to avoid, and that using these tools enables us to build things faster, which potentially is worth using them. I do it, too. But I do want everyone to care . If you're using the tool because it's convenient, and you know that it could be spying on you, you sho…
The fact that strong crypto is possible becomes this red herring that computer geeks think can save us from abusive government. But this ignores the fact that true security from government actors like the NSA is impossible without a level of inconvenience that no one will be willing to go through. Cloud services are just too convenient, and there is no way to establish meaningful assurances of privacy with any cloud provider in the current legal climate. We have to fight the ugly political fight to wrestle the power back and put the government in its place. This is unappealing to technologists because it is orders of magnitude harder to accomplish than implementing strong crypto for someone who knows what they're doing, but in turn it is orders of magnitude easier than training up the mass populace on those techniques.
I hope its a generational thing, and that these young folks won't change over to the "protection over privacy" camp as they age.
How can ruining your middle-class privacy help prevent those?
How can people be so blind?
""" I'm no different from anybody else. I don't have special skills. I'm just another guy who sits there day to day in the office, watches what's happening and goes, 'This is something that's not our place to decide, the public needs to decide whether these programs and policies are right or wrong.' And I'm willing to go on the record to defend the authenticity of them and say, 'I didn't change these, I didn't modify the story. This is the truth; this is what's happening. You should decide whether we need to be doing this.' """
Privacy has always taken a back seat to security, going all the way back to the dawn of the republic. It strikes me that people who are militant about privacy are doing their cause a disservice by allowing the issue to be framed like this: a preference for "security" over "privacy". The issue is and always has been where the line is drawn. Instead of quoting Ben Franklin and talking about how dumb the American people…
I bring up issues of privacy on topics many think I would unabashedly support, such as police cameras. Who gets to see that footage, under what circumstances? How long should tapes be retained, if they aren't needed for an investigation?
I suppose I agree with your point, and decided to respond with how I take that approach.
I'm 27, living in Toronto. Most of my acquaintances say things like "I have nothing to hide so it doesn't bother me", or "Dropbox is just so convenient , it doesn't matter about the NSA". It's upsetting. There continues to be very little discussion about the large-scale, societal effects from a total surveillance society: Writers and artists self-censoring themselves; power structures able to spy on, and control, ent…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right - that's fair, in my opinion. For work, I use closed-source software including Dropbox too. I should specify that I agree this is difficult or impossible to avoid, and that using these tools enables us to build things faster, which potentially is worth using them. I do it, too. But I do want everyone to care . If you're using the tool because it's convenient, and you know that it could be spying on you, you sho…
I would go even further that moving away from cloud services is nothing more than an individual mitigation that comes at a huge inconvenience and will have no meaningful effect on the real problem. The fact that strong crypto is possible becomes this red herring that computer geeks think can save us from abusive government. But this ignores the fact that true security from government actors like the NSA is impossible…
It is a false dilemma. By losing your privacy you don't get more security. This is the frame the Government(Washington), and the media that depends on Government(like the WP) use so they can benefit from terrorism. In fact , when you lose your privacy , you lose your security. What happens when the people in power have all the power and no oversight? Look at Alberto Nisman in Argentina. Look at the Soviet Union for r…
Democracy depends on informed consent of the governed.
> What happens when the people in power have all the power and no oversight?
The phrase "power corrupts - absolute power corrupts absolutely" was inspired by human history.
> By losing your privacy you don't get more security.
> Are you safer when you are transparent to them but they are opaque to you?
Eroding privacy protections aren't necessary. Many recent terrorism attacks could have been nipped in the bud, if more help was accepted from the public. For instance, the underwear bomber's parent warned the CIA [1] of his child. Russian intelligence warned us of the Tsarnaev's [2]. A flight school instructor warned the FBI of suspicious students who didn't seem interested in landing [3].
[1] https://hbr.org/2010/01/why-they-didnt-connect-the-dot
[2] http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2014/04/11/fbi-admit...
[3] http://www.newsweek.com/terrible-missed-chance-67401
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Keeping citizens informed & in the loop would help national security more than anything.