51–60 of 139 posts
When people say, “I have nothing to hide.” I remind them that they have a door on their bathroom and curtains over their windows for perfectly innocent yet no less valid reasons.
Another argument I hear often is that "they have no reason to surveil boring ordinary individuals." Sure nobody might have bothered to look into your private exchanges past aggregable metadata until half a decade or so ago, but with recent advancements in LLMs it takes mere moments to summarize or search through large batches of messages.
This can quickly evoke Godwin's law by stating jews living in europe (and the US) were boring ordinary individuals, until they weren't. Likewise, currently in Europe there's been an anti-muslim (boring, ordinary individuals) sentiment, where if certain people / factions gain enough power, they will be targeted - insofar as they aren't already.
I think most people who say "I have nothing to hide" are just mimicking a slogan they no doubt heard someone they respect or at least think talks well say Another common refrain, especially since Snowden, is just glib defeatism ("they already have all my info anyway") which is also a poor way to think about policy (and to make personal choices, but I won't argue those with most people) I really think the main reason…
> spying is abstract to them. Not just spying, but for many/most - the harm is also. Most people struggle on the day-to-day; getting worked up that a random boogieman is compiling a profile on them to serve ads leads to a big pile of 'so?'. When Windows Recall was announced as an example; I started asking (non tech, mostly boomer) people their take on it. I almost universally got a 'neat!' response. The security impl…
Tell them that persecutions have historically been more effective in places where institutionalized profiling was in place.
"Saying you don't care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don't care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say." Ed Snowden
1. Post all your personal information online is a public place on the internet. This should include all your personal records, your bank accounts, your drivers license, job history. Also include a list of all websites you have visited, the user names and passwords for all online accounts.
2. List the same information for your spouse or partner, children and parents.
3. Take your car keys, house keys, credit cards and such object and leave them in a public place with a note showing where someone can find the information you posted in item #1 and #2.
Congratulations! You have provided conclusive proof that those of us you who protect our privacy are completely silly people. You have won the argument and demonstrated that without a doubt you "have nothing to hide".
Please get back to us in a couple of months and let us know how it is going so we foolish people can join you. [edit: people and join you => people can join you.
See what's happening in China. The surveillance and oppression are particularly severe in the Xinjiang region, where authorities have implemented a multi-layered system of monitoring and control. This includes facial recognition cameras, mobile police checkpoints, and the collection of biometric data. See also [1]
We must demand transparency and accountability from those in power, whilst supporting organizations that work to protect our privacy.
Similarly, private sector business will always seek more of our personal data in order to make more money, and the tech industry is enabling more intrusive government surveillance.
It requires activism to protect our freedom.
[1] https://theconversation.com/digital-surveillance-is-omnipres...
Privacy also allows rich people to hide their wealth and avoid taxes, it allows secret government agencies and other powerful organizations to publish anonymously and influence public life in illegitimate ways, and other bad things. Finally, privacy is inherently anti-"information wants to be free".
Anyway, rich people are failing more and more to hide their wealth and avoid taxes; their lives are private, their businesses are not, not when they are beholden to the laws, rights, and duties of the country they live or do business in. Secret government agencies are not secret in a democratic country - since if they were, you wouldn't know about them.
You're conflating privacy with secrecy and / or hiding shady things; those are different things. It took whistleblowers like Snowden and Assange to uncover these things. That said, that's an interesting case to look at; it uncovered immoral government activity on the one hand, but especially with the Assange cases, because they were not careful with people's privacy, it also uncovered the identity of agents (= violated their privacy), which cost them their life.
Secrets are real (and hard to keep), but privacy is just the politeness of your neighbours. We should never confuse the two - people seem to think that a right to privacy means a right to secrecy. It does not and never can. People have behaved badly enough with so called online anonymity. We will have our entire lives stripped bare and laid out on a digital plate - this will enable an incredible outpouring of new les…
Individuals do have a right to privacy and, by extension, secrecy. You are not entitled to information others do not want you to have, no matter how well-intentioned or well-resourced you are. The only sort of society where your view should be acceptable is a society where every individual accepts their every thought and action is observed equally by all other complicit individuals.
Counterpoint: taxes. By living in a country, you are subject to their laws. Said laws require you to pay taxes on things like income and property. I'm aware this is attempted to be kept secret at a large scale, but when it comes down to it, by living in a country you agree to submit or have collected that information to the responsible authority.
Secrets are real (and hard to keep), but privacy is just the politeness of your neighbours. We should never confuse the two - people seem to think that a right to privacy means a right to secrecy. It does not and never can. People have behaved badly enough with so called online anonymity. We will have our entire lives stripped bare and laid out on a digital plate - this will enable an incredible outpouring of new les…
Individuals do have a right to privacy and, by extension, secrecy. You are not entitled to information others do not want you to have, no matter how well-intentioned or well-resourced you are. The only sort of society where your view should be acceptable is a society where every individual accepts their every thought and action is observed equally by all other complicit individuals.
Cars are waaaay better than horses. So now we have systems of licensing, proving you are capable of driving safely, ways to track your car ensure it is driven safely - perhaps originally if a police officer saw you and now every minute of the day we can see if you are speeding or potentially dangerous
We did all this over time, but the current system woukd give Sherlock Holmes a heart attack.
But we had to find ways for millions and millions to live on top of each other - it is not perfect and can be improved - and should be done with care.