This article is a poor argument against "nothing to hide".
It starts with eight paragraphs attacking a strawman: "Can I see your credit card bills for the last year?" As though anyone seriously thinks all financial data should be public. Everyone has something to hide from you, obviously, the issue is whether they have anything to hide from the NSA.
After reflecting on the ethereality of privacy, the author argues from fictional evidence, reminding us how evil surveillance was in Kafka and Orwell. The proponents of "nothing to hide" do not live in a dystopia. You don't need to convince them that surveillance is bad in North Korea, you need to convince them that it's bad in a liberal democracy with independent press and functioning courts.
The author explains that governments collect far more than most realize. This is very true, but it does nothing to defeat "nothing to hide", whose proponents should be fine with an NSA that is literally omniscient. Nobody believes government data collection is morally justified because it is ineffective.
He worries the government will gain an incomplete view of suspects, persecuting innocent people who would be exonerated by details they can't see. In the real world, law enforcement doesn't get to decide who is guilty. If their incompetence leads to investigations of innocent people, the result is an embarrassing defeat in court once more evidence comes to light, which they are obviously motivated to avoid. Arguably, one way to prevent prosecution of innocents is to ensure the government has more surveillance, so law enforcement can correctly distinguish aspiring meth manufacturers from writers of Breaking Bad fanfics.
By the time the author gets to his strongest point, that data scooped up by intelligence agencies might leak to the public, he does nothing to support that such an event is likely. How many instances are there where real people have been affected by leaks of data collected by the NSA/FBI/CIA? There may be good reasons to worry about such leaks anyway, like known leaks from private companies and local police departments, but none of these are presented.
Of course, the author objects to demands for the "dead bodies" of privacy erosion: "But if this is the standard to recognize a problem, then few privacy problems will be recognized." Yes, and that's the point: Proponents of "nothing to hide" believe there is no actual harm to anyone who isn't guilty, and the author presents no counterexamples to dispel this belief.
> you need to convince them that it's bad in a liberal democracy with independent press and functioning courts
Do you not follow the Snowden case?
You honestly think big media conglomerates constitute a perfectly independent press?
.
I've heard, in a big USA city, radio ads calling for locals to report people torrenting files out of coffee houses. That for ratting out your fellow citizens, for what amounts to nothing more than distributing shared culture, you will receive money in return.
So what if the press is "independent"? What if I just completely disagree with talking points fed to the "independent" press by rich and powerful companies who stand to gain from human suffering.
In addition, can you please explain how courts in western countries are "functioning" properly now that NSA-based parallel construction methods are becoming prevalent? How is that fair? How is the surveillance even legal?
Finally, in the real world, if you had the ability to pick between a speedy, censorship-free GuiFi CJDNS mesh network running anonymously over I2P, and the government sponsored spy-filled funfest alternative, would you say that all GuiFi users must have "something to hide"? Is there NO reason to have anonymity?
Anonymity is unquestionably a benefit for consumers. It is a benefit to protect one's identity. There is _zero_ upside to having all of your data recorded 24/7, indefinitely, by agencies with the power to kill you and to ruin your life. Worse, they can do so for purely political reasons: see Aaron Swartz.
Respectfully: Are you implying that the United States is a liberal democracy with an independent press and functioning courts?
Or are you suggesting that the argument of privacy exists only as a function of context? (e.g. One doesn't desire one's future employer to be made aware of one's disease, but one does desire his/her physician to be made aware...)
>He worries the government will gain an incomplete view of suspects, persecuting innocent people who would be exonerated by details they can't see. In the real world, law enforcement doesn't get to decide who is guilty. If their incompetence leads to investigations of innocent people, the result is an embarrassing defeat in court once more evidence comes to light, which they are obviously motivated to avoid. Arguably, one way to prevent prosecution of innocents is to ensure the government has more surveillance, so law enforcement can correctly distinguish aspiring meth manufacturers from writers of Breaking Bad fanfics.
Except that the government can change your life without any trial. The government can put you on a list that requires you to undergo extra screening at the airport. Or you might even get put on the No Fly List. There is no way you can contest being placed on either list. These sorts of lists may just be confined to air travel for now, but after the next crisis, who knows how they add "security" for our own safety?
Also, it's not clear that this list would be any smaller if there were less government surveillance. Presumably, the less the government knows about you the more paranoid they would be about letting you on an airplane, given you share a name with a known terrorist.
And, frankly, if the single most egregious collateral damage to result from a spy apparatus as large as the NSA/CIA/FBI is that some people have trouble getting on airplanes, that's really not that bad.
It starts with eight paragraphs attacking a strawman: "Can I see your credit card bills for the last year?" As though anyone seriously thinks all financial data should be public. Everyone has something to hide from you, obviously, the issue is whether they have anything to hide from the NSA.
After reflecting on the ethereality of privacy, the author argues from fictional evidence, reminding us how evil surveillance was in Kafka and Orwell. The proponents of "nothing to hide" do not live in a dystopia. You don't need to convince them that surveillance is bad in North Korea, you need to convince them that it's bad in a liberal democracy with independent press and functioning courts.
The author explains that governments collect far more than most realize. This is very true, but it does nothing to defeat "nothing to hide", whose proponents should be fine with an NSA that is literally omniscient. Nobody believes government data collection is morally justified because it is ineffective.
He worries the government will gain an incomplete view of suspects, persecuting innocent people who would be exonerated by details they can't see. In the real world, law enforcement doesn't get to decide who is guilty. If their incompetence leads to investigations of innocent people, the result is an embarrassing defeat in court once more evidence comes to light, which they are obviously motivated to avoid. Arguably, one way to prevent prosecution of innocents is to ensure the government has more surveillance, so law enforcement can correctly distinguish aspiring meth manufacturers from writers of Breaking Bad fanfics.
By the time the author gets to his strongest point, that data scooped up by intelligence agencies might leak to the public, he does nothing to support that such an event is likely. How many instances are there where real people have been affected by leaks of data collected by the NSA/FBI/CIA? There may be good reasons to worry about such leaks anyway, like known leaks from private companies and local police departments, but none of these are presented.
Of course, the author objects to demands for the "dead bodies" of privacy erosion: "But if this is the standard to recognize a problem, then few privacy problems will be recognized." Yes, and that's the point: Proponents of "nothing to hide" believe there is no actual harm to anyone who isn't guilty, and the author presents no counterexamples to dispel this belief.