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What is the easiest way to explain to the average citizen that the "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" argument is not a good reason to let the Government keep t

by anondon 10y ago

What is the easiest way to explain to the average citizen that the "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" argument is not a good reason to let the Government keep tabs on your online activities? Most people don't give any thought to online privacy that it truly scares me.

jakobdabo 10y ago
"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." - Edward Snowden
- masmullin 10y ago
  That argument isn't good enough, unfortunately. As many people will respond with "well, yeah, I don't have anything important to say."
  - xorxornop 10y ago
    The fact that they can't even think that they might want to be able to say "I value my human rights" at some point is severely worrying. Bunch of philosophical zombies. If they're anything other than white skinned, blue eyed, blonde haired, heterosexual, male, centrist-politically leaning (or one of the other few extremely simplistic predefined options - analogy: the block-shapes-through-the-board children's game) - history called. It's got some advice to give - but, of course, barely anyone is listening. (except the government. No, they're listening plenty... just not to history - they're too busy listening to the sound of hubris!)
    - wallace_f 10y ago
      But everybody is equal!
lubesGordi 10y ago
My counter to this argument is I ask "Who decides what you should hide?" The answer is the government, which is not always on your side or right or ethical. I think (hope) people in the US will get this argument now more that Trump has been elected.
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  >The answer is the government // Which is short for "the democratic will of the people" in a democracy. If the government is some elite group that you don't want governing you then vote them out.
fibbery 10y ago
the only way I have had any success is to describe the problem in terms of "wrong place wrong time" + "misinterpreted evidence" scenarios. this is something I wrote up a while back to try to explain it to a family member: --------------------------------------------------------------- Imagine a crime takes place in a certain area. Using surveillance technology, police identify everyone who was in the area around the time of the crime. They do this through license plate recognition, face recognition, cell phone tracking, and credit card receipts. You happen to be on that list because you were shopping at a nearby store earlier. You're now technically a suspect in a crime, although there's a thousand other suspects, and you have nothing to hide, so no big deal, right? A witness saw the perpetrator running away from the crime. They only saw them from the back, but report that the suspect is a tall white male around 40 years of age. So police narrow down that list to just people who fit this description. Uh oh, the list is now only about 50 people, and you're one of them. The crime appears to be a potential race-motivated hate crime. Using web profiling, investigators search for those 50 people to look for any history of involvement with hate groups. The algorithm they use has over-zealously classified certain extreme right wing news sources as potential markers for hate crime. You're not particularly worried, I mean, you're obviously not some crazy racist. There's no way they'd be interested in you. But you forgot - six months ago, you started to get interested in the immigration debate, and posted on several anti-immigration forums. With the additional profiling, the list narrows down to 8 suspects, including you. You happen to fit other markers for this kind of crime as well - you live alone, work a less prestigious job, neighbors say you don't go out much. Now you're a suspect in a crime. You'll almost certainly not be convicted, because there's no direct evidence. But good luck explaining that to your employer, your family, your friends, and the criminal defense lawyer you now have to pay for. Still think you have nothing to hide?
- turnip123942 10y ago
  Nice write-up. Bonus: It comes just in time for traditional Thanksgiving family arguments!
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  This doesn't read as very convincing to me. Do you have experience of the justice system? There's no way the CPS in the UK would take a "well he was probably in the general area based on his number-plate, and he reads the Toadygraph newspaper and is in the 52% who are for Brexit", even along with matching a general profile for criminals, and seek a prosecution on that basis. Not to mention it would be a huge miscarriage of justice to convict. And that the courts don't have time for arsing around with people who may have a tenuous link to an area where a crime may have been committed; we don't have time, seemingly, for the "certain" cases. But what about the people who don't support racism/xenophobia, read a mix of news sources, aren't male (and so don't match with crime profiling). Are you saying their argument for not needing strong encryption is valid? That would seem to be a corollary of your hypothetical situation, you've cherry picked long-shot situations compounded together that would lead to a case laughed out of court - no motive, no evidence, no credible witnesses. >Still think you have nothing to hide? // Seems like ~99% of people reading that who weren't convinced before hand would say "yes". Also, if they're savvy they know that the store where you went has your MAC address logged for customer tracking and corroborates your story (due to "privacy violation"), the car-park away from the scene on their number-plate cam shows you stayed in the area long after the alleged crime and so weren't fleeing, another shop has you on their instore tapes at the time the police say the crime was committed. Now the Toadygraph has picked up your story and someone leaked that you wouldn't have been picked up if you weren't a reader; the Barclay brothers are threatening to pull their Tory party funding and so the PM is putting pressure on the presiding Chief of Police to make an example of the department responsible. Lawyers are starting to contact you (they got your info because you left your friend list open on Facebook) and are offering to lodge a case for unlawful arrest for you and the compensation they're suggesting looks promising ... Meanwhile people are wondering why the police didn't catch the perp; the police say it's because they don't have access to all the data they need due to public privacy concerns ...
hackuser 10y ago
Read up on the history of government abuse of power and explain to them why doing nothing wrong will not protect them, and the necessity of standing up for others.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  No no no, this is a very ineffective tactic because most people don't have the time, energy, or ability to read and comprehend history sufficiently well. Just ask them if they'd be comfortable with Donald Trump or Nigel Farage being able to read their browsing history for a year. If they are, there's no point in talking to them. If they're not, then introduce them to Tor.
  - hackuser 10y ago
    I don't mean you should tell others to read, I mean read up on it yourself and tell others what you learned.
hundchenkatze 10y ago
I like to use the fact that nothing to hide and privacy are different. You don't hide the fact that you use the bathroom, but you still go to a dedicated private room and close the door.
- bahjoite 10y ago
  And the only time you might decide to hide the fact is when faced with the knowledge that someone may come, at any time, and force the door open.
dajohnson89 10y ago
The tactic I always use is that historically, the government does not have good intentions when collecting data on ethnic minorities such as myself.
vanderreeah 10y ago
Logically speaking, hundchenkatze's riposte seems best: that hiding and privacy are two different things. Practically speaking, I believe it's impossible to convince most people, including myself, to change their behaviour online. In my opinion this is because most people feel detached from any instrumental or guiding role in their society. They simply have no agency, no say in what is done to them and what is done in their name. Because of this perceived abyss between them and the state, the notion that its magnifying glass will be turned, one day in the future, upon them personally, is incredible. The distance is too great. And because they feel like they have no stake in the fate of their society, their browsing habits are anyway innocuous: they probably rightly think that they won't raise any flags. To leap from that state of affairs to a future in which individuals start to be singled out for their browsing habits requires an effort of the imagination that most of us don't have the time or energy to undertake in the detail needed for it to be realistic or even actionable.
teddyh 10y ago
I find this 2006 column by Bruce Schneier to be most lucid and succinct: The Eternal Value of Privacy http://archive.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2006/05/70886 http://archive.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securi...
TeMPOraL 10y ago
John Oliver's "Dick Pics" seem like a pretty good argument that can reach average citizens. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  The relevant part is https://youtu.be/XEVlyP4_11M?t=1487 https://youtu.be/XEVlyP4_11M?t=1487, at 24m47s in. Do average citizens send pictures of their genitalia to people? Are you saying that the gov is downloading everyone's photos, or are you saying they have the capability. I want law enforcement to have the capability to access images pertinent to an investigation when they have a warrant; it seems harmful to justice to prevent that by legislation. Oliver appears to be saying because the government can access such information they're necessarily over-powered; surely without such capability then they'd be incapable of following even the most basic of criminal organisations and certainly incapable of tracking information pertinent to defence from foreign powers and, yes, domestic terrorism. "If the government were looking at pictures of my penis that would upset me." The question is if you say "would you agree to the government being able to see all the pictures on a device of a suspected criminal, eg in a murder investigation" how many will say "no because they might see an image of the suspects dick and so it would be an invasion of privacy". Now "if you were the main suspect in a murder investigation, should the government be allowed to see the pictures you stored on your device"? We all now a large proportion of people would want to hide naked images of themselves from casual observers, but TBH if the cost of cracking a terrorist ring is a government operative seeing a picture of me naked then I'll tie a bow on it and send it in gift wrap; I'm shy but it's only a body part. The argument has been simplified by Oliver beyond what is relevant. There's much more nuance than he's pretending there is IMO. Now, if the government agencies have agents viewing for private reasons images that are downloaded, or they're accessing data that has been acquired illegally then we have something to work on. Doubtless that happens. PS: I'll admit I've not followed the Snowden case in depth as it's not particular interesting to me. I'm much closer to the "nothing to hide" people than the "the government know what toilet paper I use the world will end tomorrow" people [nice and objective!] as you may have surmised.
  - 10y ago
jwtadvice 10y ago
Point out that surveillance is an issue concerned with the integrity of attorney-client privilege, dissidents and journalists who DO have things to hide even though they are not criminal.
return0 10y ago
I guess in the US you could take advantage of the current Trump Scare.
tmnvix 10y ago
"Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" "And yet here you are, wearing clothes."
Kepler-327b 10y ago
Many of the responses given to this question are fairly weak, eg. "but what if you don't want people to see you naked?". Invasion of privacy affects someone's dignity, sure, but it's the fact that it makes one _politically neutered_ that's the actual issue and is harder to explain. Here's one response: "Imagine if you ever wanted to join the Occupy Wall Street movement or something like that. All of a sudden the government, who will now see you as a threat, can go through everything you've ever done and hold it against you. Remember that one time you pirated a movie? Jail time. Remember that one time you experimented with drugs? Jail time. They will dig up something from your past and use it against you. Oppression is not a theoretical idea and not only an historical problem. Having all information about yourself available essentially makes you politically neutered." I'll be putting together a set of real-world examples to further emphasize the point.

by anondon 10y ago

jakobdabo 10y ago

"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." - Edward Snowden

masmullin 10y ago
That argument isn't good enough, unfortunately. As many people will respond with "well, yeah, I don't have anything important to say."
- xorxornop 10y ago
  The fact that they can't even think that they might want to be able to say "I value my human rights" at some point is severely worrying. Bunch of philosophical zombies. If they're anything other than white skinned, blue eyed, blonde haired, heterosexual, male, centrist-politically leaning (or one of the other few extremely simplistic predefined options - analogy: the block-shapes-through-the-board children's game) - history called. It's got some advice to give - but, of course, barely anyone is listening. (except the government. No, they're listening plenty... just not to history - they're too busy listening to the sound of hubris!)
  - wallace_f 10y ago
    But everybody is equal!

lubesGordi 10y ago

My counter to this argument is I ask "Who decides what you should hide?" The answer is the government, which is not always on your side or right or ethical. I think (hope) people in the US will get this argument now more that Trump has been elected.

pbhjpbhj 10y ago
>The answer is the government // Which is short for "the democratic will of the people" in a democracy. If the government is some elite group that you don't want governing you then vote them out.

fibbery 10y ago

the only way I have had any success is to describe the problem in terms of "wrong place wrong time" + "misinterpreted evidence" scenarios. this is something I wrote up a while back to try to explain it to a family member: --------------------------------------------------------------- Imagine a crime takes place in a certain area. Using surveillance technology, police identify everyone who was in the area around the time of the crime. They do this through license plate recognition, face recognition, cell phone tracking, and credit card receipts. You happen to be on that list because you were shopping at a nearby store earlier. You're now technically a suspect in a crime, although there's a thousand other suspects, and you have nothing to hide, so no big deal, right? A witness saw the perpetrator running away from the crime. They only saw them from the back, but report that the suspect is a tall white male around 40 years of age. So police narrow down that list to just people who fit this description. Uh oh, the list is now only about 50 people, and you're one of them. The crime appears to be a potential race-motivated hate crime. Using web profiling, investigators search for those 50 people to look for any history of involvement with hate groups. The algorithm they use has over-zealously classified certain extreme right wing news sources as potential markers for hate crime. You're not particularly worried, I mean, you're obviously not some crazy racist. There's no way they'd be interested in you. But you forgot - six months ago, you started to get interested in the immigration debate, and posted on several anti-immigration forums. With the additional profiling, the list narrows down to 8 suspects, including you. You happen to fit other markers for this kind of crime as well - you live alone, work a less prestigious job, neighbors say you don't go out much. Now you're a suspect in a crime. You'll almost certainly not be convicted, because there's no direct evidence. But good luck explaining that to your employer, your family, your friends, and the criminal defense lawyer you now have to pay for. Still think you have nothing to hide?

turnip123942 10y ago
Nice write-up. Bonus: It comes just in time for traditional Thanksgiving family arguments!
pbhjpbhj 10y ago
This doesn't read as very convincing to me. Do you have experience of the justice system? There's no way the CPS in the UK would take a "well he was probably in the general area based on his number-plate, and he reads the Toadygraph newspaper and is in the 52% who are for Brexit", even along with matching a general profile for criminals, and seek a prosecution on that basis. Not to mention it would be a huge miscarriage of justice to convict. And that the courts don't have time for arsing around with people who may have a tenuous link to an area where a crime may have been committed; we don't have time, seemingly, for the "certain" cases. But what about the people who don't support racism/xenophobia, read a mix of news sources, aren't male (and so don't match with crime profiling). Are you saying their argument for not needing strong encryption is valid? That would seem to be a corollary of your hypothetical situation, you've cherry picked long-shot situations compounded together that would lead to a case laughed out of court - no motive, no evidence, no credible witnesses. >Still think you have nothing to hide? // Seems like ~99% of people reading that who weren't convinced before hand would say "yes". Also, if they're savvy they know that the store where you went has your MAC address logged for customer tracking and corroborates your story (due to "privacy violation"), the car-park away from the scene on their number-plate cam shows you stayed in the area long after the alleged crime and so weren't fleeing, another shop has you on their instore tapes at the time the police say the crime was committed. Now the Toadygraph has picked up your story and someone leaked that you wouldn't have been picked up if you weren't a reader; the Barclay brothers are threatening to pull their Tory party funding and so the PM is putting pressure on the presiding Chief of Police to make an example of the department responsible. Lawyers are starting to contact you (they got your info because you left your friend list open on Facebook) and are offering to lodge a case for unlawful arrest for you and the compensation they're suggesting looks promising ... Meanwhile people are wondering why the police didn't catch the perp; the police say it's because they don't have access to all the data they need due to public privacy concerns ...

hackuser 10y ago

Read up on the history of government abuse of power and explain to them why doing nothing wrong will not protect them, and the necessity of standing up for others.

anigbrowl 10y ago
No no no, this is a very ineffective tactic because most people don't have the time, energy, or ability to read and comprehend history sufficiently well. Just ask them if they'd be comfortable with Donald Trump or Nigel Farage being able to read their browsing history for a year. If they are, there's no point in talking to them. If they're not, then introduce them to Tor.
- hackuser 10y ago
  I don't mean you should tell others to read, I mean read up on it yourself and tell others what you learned.

hundchenkatze 10y ago

I like to use the fact that nothing to hide and privacy are different. You don't hide the fact that you use the bathroom, but you still go to a dedicated private room and close the door.

bahjoite 10y ago
And the only time you might decide to hide the fact is when faced with the knowledge that someone may come, at any time, and force the door open.

dajohnson89 10y ago

The tactic I always use is that historically, the government does not have good intentions when collecting data on ethnic minorities such as myself.

vanderreeah 10y ago

Logically speaking, hundchenkatze's riposte seems best: that hiding and privacy are two different things. Practically speaking, I believe it's impossible to convince most people, including myself, to change their behaviour online. In my opinion this is because most people feel detached from any instrumental or guiding role in their society. They simply have no agency, no say in what is done to them and what is done in their name. Because of this perceived abyss between them and the state, the notion that its magnifying glass will be turned, one day in the future, upon them personally, is incredible. The distance is too great. And because they feel like they have no stake in the fate of their society, their browsing habits are anyway innocuous: they probably rightly think that they won't raise any flags. To leap from that state of affairs to a future in which individuals start to be singled out for their browsing habits requires an effort of the imagination that most of us don't have the time or energy to undertake in the detail needed for it to be realistic or even actionable.

teddyh 10y ago

I find this 2006 column by Bruce Schneier to be most lucid and succinct: The Eternal Value of Privacy http://archive.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2006/05/70886 http://archive.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securi...

TeMPOraL 10y ago

John Oliver's "Dick Pics" seem like a pretty good argument that can reach average citizens. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M

pbhjpbhj 10y ago
The relevant part is https://youtu.be/XEVlyP4_11M?t=1487 https://youtu.be/XEVlyP4_11M?t=1487, at 24m47s in. Do average citizens send pictures of their genitalia to people? Are you saying that the gov is downloading everyone's photos, or are you saying they have the capability. I want law enforcement to have the capability to access images pertinent to an investigation when they have a warrant; it seems harmful to justice to prevent that by legislation. Oliver appears to be saying because the government can access such information they're necessarily over-powered; surely without such capability then they'd be incapable of following even the most basic of criminal organisations and certainly incapable of tracking information pertinent to defence from foreign powers and, yes, domestic terrorism. "If the government were looking at pictures of my penis that would upset me." The question is if you say "would you agree to the government being able to see all the pictures on a device of a suspected criminal, eg in a murder investigation" how many will say "no because they might see an image of the suspects dick and so it would be an invasion of privacy". Now "if you were the main suspect in a murder investigation, should the government be allowed to see the pictures you stored on your device"? We all now a large proportion of people would want to hide naked images of themselves from casual observers, but TBH if the cost of cracking a terrorist ring is a government operative seeing a picture of me naked then I'll tie a bow on it and send it in gift wrap; I'm shy but it's only a body part. The argument has been simplified by Oliver beyond what is relevant. There's much more nuance than he's pretending there is IMO. Now, if the government agencies have agents viewing for private reasons images that are downloaded, or they're accessing data that has been acquired illegally then we have something to work on. Doubtless that happens. PS: I'll admit I've not followed the Snowden case in depth as it's not particular interesting to me. I'm much closer to the "nothing to hide" people than the "the government know what toilet paper I use the world will end tomorrow" people [nice and objective!] as you may have surmised.
- 10y ago

jwtadvice 10y ago

Point out that surveillance is an issue concerned with the integrity of attorney-client privilege, dissidents and journalists who DO have things to hide even though they are not criminal.

return0 10y ago

I guess in the US you could take advantage of the current Trump Scare.

tmnvix 10y ago

"Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" "And yet here you are, wearing clothes."

Kepler-327b 10y ago

Many of the responses given to this question are fairly weak, eg. "but what if you don't want people to see you naked?". Invasion of privacy affects someone's dignity, sure, but it's the fact that it makes one _politically neutered_ that's the actual issue and is harder to explain. Here's one response: "Imagine if you ever wanted to join the Occupy Wall Street movement or something like that. All of a sudden the government, who will now see you as a threat, can go through everything you've ever done and hold it against you. Remember that one time you pirated a movie? Jail time. Remember that one time you experimented with drugs? Jail time. They will dig up something from your past and use it against you. Oppression is not a theoretical idea and not only an historical problem. Having all information about yourself available essentially makes you politically neutered." I'll be putting together a set of real-world examples to further emphasize the point.