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The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

thompson2026.com

151–160 of 179 posts

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#151

The author is a bit uncharitable. "I have nothing to hide" usually is a shorthand for "it would be imprudent and inconvenient to dedicate my limited time and resources to an abstract good like privacy. This would not be the case if I had something illegal or reputation-ruining to hide." Nobody denies the value of privacy, but practicality beats purity in the eyes of a person who doesn't have a particular ideological…

It can also mean: I prefer the police catching murderers. I'm fine when wife cheaters get caught in the drag net. Privacy advocates never admit that there is not only a "next" government abusing surveillance, but also a "current" one, which uses surveillance for beneficial purposes.

I am a privacy advocate, and also am disappointed at how narrow minded some of the arguments of privacy advocates are.

"Banning encrypted chat will just mean the bad people moved to banned platforms". Perhaps, but some bad people have to operate where victims are (Facebook stalkers, eBay cons, ...)

"Police should be forced to just do... actual police work."

It's pretty reasonably for police to want to increase the chances and speed of resolution.

We should champion and defend privacy, in spite of the good reasons to weaken it. There's no need to strawmen.

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The HN dead dynamic has been increasingly throwing babies out with the bathwater, and logging in (even to a throwaway account) with showdead=yes is the right call these days. But for this particular comment, I assume it was flagged because at this point continuing to cheerlead for the fascists/destructionists with nonsense talking points is just basic flamebait. As GP said, the assertion that only illegal immigrants…

This is not basic flamebait. if you have any serious conversation outside of your political bubble this is THE argument that people who get deported are never US citizens. and it is a valid argument unless you can find examples of citizens deported. I can't there are so many shorts of right wing "influencers" cornering liberals who can't give a suitable reply to this question. so the argument about hearings is import…

Whether or not someone is a citizen is a complete red herring. Plenty of non citizens are in the US legally. Why even bring that talking point up?

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. It is a valid argument in US in the eyes of US citizens who make it. You don't get to just say "it's not a valid argument" and think that will convince people and actually you know it too. That's why you give the rest of the explanation. which will not be seen because the conversation was killed.

What I mean is that it's not a legitimate argument in the context of good-faith discussion getting to the truths of matters, which is the ethos of this site. I didn't address the social aspects you brought up, and I really should have. Yes, there are many people repeating these arguments, despite them being trivially debunked. That is a big part of The Problem, right? "Flood the zone with shit" to overwhelm people's…

> What I mean is that it's not a legitimate argument in the context of good-faith discussion getting to the truths of matters, which is the ethos of this site.

it's only not a legitimate argument if you are in a specific bubble. How do I know? Because I talk to people outside of it. Talk to some right-wing conservatives and you'll find out I promise you.

> Yes, there are many people repeating these arguments, despite them being trivially debunked.

No, they are not trivially debunked. Actually "no hearings" argumetn is trivially debunked by right wingers: "hearings take too long and we have too many immigrants committing crimes". However it's still a good argument to know. And killing this conversation makes sure people don't know it.

> confirming their preconceived biases feels good

Do you have enough introspection power to ask if you are doing that yourself right here?

> when the bulk of political discourse revolves around flamebait

This is not flamebait for the reasons I explained

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "We must have nothing to hide, nothing to fear", but, and this is the important bit, this is in the context of your relationship with Christ. Also note how it is some sort of goal not a statement on not having something to hide. I guess in line with "may the one without sin throw the first stone".

I think you're being reductionist here.

Heh ... you. Is it reductionist to make something more specific and less general though?

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

telco guy comes in at point x in past, takes a pic of your meters while you don't attend. privacy fucked. but obscuring stuff like that behind temper proof (mwemphasis on proof) the glitter?

Your first sentence: That could happen, but they'd have to send someone, which is an expensive process. It would also cross the into deliberate fraud. In the larger picture, privacy protections are not bulletproof. They don't have to be. They just have to be good enough that they (plus laws against violation) restrain most people from violating them. Your second sentence is incomprehensible. What are you trying to sa…

sorry. the second sentence asks whether it's viable to temper proof all data in your home that might be exploited.

some people go through trash, find bills or other stuff that should have been shredded or burned. others even make use of magazines one has read, which is a measure in social engineering and that thing creeps do in chats which is one step beyond that line where kids tell others boat loads of stuff on discord.

then there is even the kind that takes out trash specific to you and drops it somewhere along the way where you walk your dog. just to get you paranoid enough for the next steps.

there's a guy who uses glue and glitter to seal screws and stuff. the glitter creates a pattern that cannot be reproduced. manufacturers do similar things with special stickers. it's really clever but will get you only so far.

it's mostly beyond the scope of the topic, sorry for wasting your time. pointless stuff happened to me and I remember stories and people, whose lives have been ruined and their characters FUBARed, from the past every time I read "nothing to hide".

it's 2025, corporations have completely normalized (the verb as it is used in military contexts, leveled) privacy and turned anonymity upside down, as have social and classic media, both small and big. it's incredibly strange to me that so few regard the consequences as an aggregation of transgressions rather than just violations at points in time.

"whatever bad thing we do, makes the next one so much easier."

Aggregation comes with exponential growth. Why is the law not aware of how badly their ignorance will backfire? Just because, apparently, which is why it's almost pointless to temper proof anything because if you are "hit". nothing and nobody can or will adequately compensate for the loss.

Having to spend a bit of time on mails and phone calls is nothing compared to the consequences of what can and does happen.

One lifetime and there were civilizations and "Empires", or rather colonies before, all with potential and it's because of small "levels" of deliberate ignorance, not the selectivity bias kind of our brains, that leads to civil conflicts, rises in crime, first small, then violence, rape, murder rates explode.

Software and Web Engineers are especially ignorant, I noticed in the last few years. And people think it's a result of demand, or rather a lack thereof and that the cycle that creates an "I don't care" mindset can't be fiddled with for the positive, even though engineers are literally the switch.

There's an inverted spotlight effect at play here, a maximized bystander effect and inverted egocentric bias. Engineers and intelligent academics believe they matter less than they actually do, which results in learned irrelevance, and culminates in the tendency to rationalize and defend existing power structures and "systems" even when they harm pretty much everybody up- and downstream.

I keep getting reminded of Pinker's "Better Angels of Our Nature" where he attempts to show with data over time how everything is getting better, and I think he hints at the nature of spikes and such but he completely failed to account for the aggregation of all these spikes, which there is no data for because law makers and enforcers are, apparently not willing to do the required work now vs leave it for later when the shit hits the fan.

But maybe that's just the reason why human colonies die.

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not basic flamebait. if you have any serious conversation outside of your political bubble this is THE argument that people who get deported are never US citizens. and it is a valid argument unless you can find examples of citizens deported. I can't there are so many shorts of right wing "influencers" cornering liberals who can't give a suitable reply to this question. so the argument about hearings is import…

Whether or not someone is a citizen is a complete red herring. Plenty of non citizens are in the US legally. Why even bring that talking point up?

Their argument is that only non citizens who committed some crime get deported. Which is basically normal in many countries except maybe EU. I for sure know of people who got deported after committing crimes or even just administrative wrongdoings while being on legal visas

What you can say US should hold itself to higher standard and how trump does it is absolutely wrong... Then I agree

Yoo can also say that right wingers move goalposts by first saying "only illegal migrants get deported" then saying "even legal migrants pending citizenship can get deported if they commit a crime" then "any non citizen can get deported because nothing in constitution prevents it" which happens but it's usually hard to get somebody for moving goalposts in a real life argument.

But saying "whether someone is a citizen or not" is irrelevant is wrong because for US citizens is very relevant

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#157
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely the "I never tell anyone my pin" is just an admission that they do have something to hide? The point is that there are many things that should be kept private/secret and often the need for that secrecy isn't obvious to people who have never been in particular situations. A woman trying to escape from an abusive relationship may need to keep her location secret to avoid being murdered by her ex, but your typica…

I understand the point, but you're taking their statement "I have nothing to hide" way too literally, and these sorts of arguments based on literal interpretations rarely convince anyone. Has anyone actually ever been convinced to take privacy more seriously by this "insight"?

It's not so much a method to convince people to take privacy more seriously, but demonstrating that people who say "I have nothing to hide" haven't really thought about it and how it's such a ridiculous statement.

My aim would be to get people to understand that everyone has stuff that should be kept secret and that it varies according to their circumstances.

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not someone is a citizen is a complete red herring. Plenty of non citizens are in the US legally. Why even bring that talking point up?

Their argument is that only non citizens who committed some crime get deported. Which is basically normal in many countries except maybe EU. I for sure know of people who got deported after committing crimes or even just administrative wrongdoings while being on legal visas What you can say US should hold itself to higher standard and how trump does it is absolutely wrong... Then I agree Yoo can also say that right w…

> Their argument is that only non citizens who committed some crime get deported

This has always been true in the US, and is increasingly not true now. The data is extremely clear on this.

> any non citizen can get deported because nothing in constitution prevents it

This is only true with an asterisk which makes it not applicable to the current situation. In the US, even non-citizens (even the subset of illegal non-citizens) have due process rights, which the Trump admin is systematically violating.

"Whether someone is a citizen or not" is actually completely irrelevant for the question of whether they have due process rights under our Constitution.

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their argument is that only non citizens who committed some crime get deported. Which is basically normal in many countries except maybe EU. I for sure know of people who got deported after committing crimes or even just administrative wrongdoings while being on legal visas What you can say US should hold itself to higher standard and how trump does it is absolutely wrong... Then I agree Yoo can also say that right w…

> Their argument is that only non citizens who committed some crime get deported This has always been true in the US, and is increasingly not true now. The data is extremely clear on this. > any non citizen can get deported because nothing in constitution prevents it This is only true with an asterisk which makes it not applicable to the current situation. In the US, even non-citizens (even the subset of illegal non-…

Show the data then. Seriously. I couldn't find examples of deports of US citizens OR non citizens who did not commit crime or administrative wrongdoing.

> non-citizens have due process rights

Yes, so now you said US should hold itself to higher standard. And I already said I agree with it.

> "Whether someone is a citizen or not" is actually completely irrelevant for the question of whether they have due process rights under our Constitution.

If true then this looks like another great point that is lost into the abyss because the whole thread was killed. which part of constitution?

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their argument is that only non citizens who committed some crime get deported This has always been true in the US, and is increasingly not true now. The data is extremely clear on this. > any non citizen can get deported because nothing in constitution prevents it This is only true with an asterisk which makes it not applicable to the current situation. In the US, even non-citizens (even the subset of illegal non-…

Show the data then. Seriously. I couldn't find examples of deports of US citizens OR non citizens who did not commit crime or administrative wrongdoing. > non-citizens have due process rights Yes, so now you said US should hold itself to higher standard. And I already said I agree with it. > "Whether someone is a citizen or not" is actually completely irrelevant for the question of whether they have due process right…

The fifth amendment. Everybody is allowed due process. Only a judge or jury can decide whether someone has violated the law.
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