4 ms·

Oddly I had exactly the opposite experience. My wife and I were interviewed together, the agent asked very straight forward questions about our past with me pre

Oddly I had exactly the opposite experience. My wife and I were interviewed together, the agent asked very straight forward questions about our past with me present. There was nothing tricky in the slightest. I guess it depends upon the situation, but if you've got nothing to hide then the above article is a non-starter.

potatolicious 16y ago
> "but if you've got nothing to hide" You would think after so many cases of abuse - some large, some small, some invoking Godwin's Law... that people would stop touting the bullshit that is "if you have nothing to hide..."
- mcargian 16y ago
  lol, ok thanks for ganging up on half my comment and the down votes. My wording choice was poor and I agree that "nothing to hide" does not make it right for the abuse that we are seeing lately. But I still stick to my response to the previous commenter, our interview was very straight forward.
  - eru 16y ago
    Thanks for your reasoned answer. If you hadn't started this one with `lol' you would have even gotten some up-votes, I guess.
CWuestefeld 16y ago
For my wife's interview, we packed a whole briefcase full of documentation. A couple of minutes in, the interviewer asked us for a couple of our lease (with both names on it). We couldn't find it in the stack, and started arguing about who had put what where. After a bit of argument, the interviewer said "OK, you two are obviously married". (Unfortunately, this was by far the most pleasant part of the whole process. Take, for example, the rejection of her application because the NJ State Police aren't certified by the INS for taking fingerprints. Instead, we had to go to a camera shop in Edison, NJ.)
nodata 16y ago
> but if you've got nothing to hide then the above article is a non-starter. Wow! You snuck that one in there. Here is an article by Bruce Schneier you might find interesting, it dissects the lazy assertion that "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2006/05/70886 http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securityma...
- joe_the_user 16y ago
  Yes, for the benefit of those applying, I would also echo that currently immigration interviews usually are fairly straightforward. But it is still very important to consider the issue for society and individuals when an agency has "wide latitude" when it does decide it's time to investigate.
  - nodata 16y ago
    I'm not sure why what you wrote matters. My comment was that the assertion "but if you've got nothing to hide then the above article is a non-starter." is completely false.
    - joe_the_user 16y ago
      Peace, I was trying to agree with you on that point...
adolph 16y ago
I'm glad you had a positive experience. Personally, I would prefer that my government did not infiltrate my social institutions, online or off, because it corrodes the trust people have for one another. In 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy, Daniel Solove writes: The problems caused by breaches of confidentiality do not merely consist of individual emotional distress; they involve a violation of trust within a relationship. There is a strong social value in ensuring that promises are kept and that trust is maintained in relationships. . . In that quote Solove is referring to a business giving info to government despite its privacy policy. I think it is germane here because one doesn't expect something labeled "friend" to be an information gathering conduit for a 3rd party (such as governmental one or even a commercial one). The essay a good read for understanding some of the dimensions of privacy in contradiction to the "I've got nothing to hide" concept, which can be a convincing argument when you think you don't have anything to hide: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565

potatolicious 16y ago

> "but if you've got nothing to hide" You would think after so many cases of abuse - some large, some small, some invoking Godwin's Law... that people would stop touting the bullshit that is "if you have nothing to hide..."

mcargian 16y ago
lol, ok thanks for ganging up on half my comment and the down votes. My wording choice was poor and I agree that "nothing to hide" does not make it right for the abuse that we are seeing lately. But I still stick to my response to the previous commenter, our interview was very straight forward.
- eru 16y ago
  Thanks for your reasoned answer. If you hadn't started this one with `lol' you would have even gotten some up-votes, I guess.

CWuestefeld 16y ago

For my wife's interview, we packed a whole briefcase full of documentation. A couple of minutes in, the interviewer asked us for a couple of our lease (with both names on it). We couldn't find it in the stack, and started arguing about who had put what where. After a bit of argument, the interviewer said "OK, you two are obviously married". (Unfortunately, this was by far the most pleasant part of the whole process. Take, for example, the rejection of her application because the NJ State Police aren't certified by the INS for taking fingerprints. Instead, we had to go to a camera shop in Edison, NJ.)

nodata 16y ago

> but if you've got nothing to hide then the above article is a non-starter. Wow! You snuck that one in there. Here is an article by Bruce Schneier you might find interesting, it dissects the lazy assertion that "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2006/05/70886 http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securityma...

joe_the_user 16y ago
Yes, for the benefit of those applying, I would also echo that currently immigration interviews usually are fairly straightforward. But it is still very important to consider the issue for society and individuals when an agency has "wide latitude" when it does decide it's time to investigate.
- nodata 16y ago
  I'm not sure why what you wrote matters. My comment was that the assertion "but if you've got nothing to hide then the above article is a non-starter." is completely false.
  - joe_the_user 16y ago
    Peace, I was trying to agree with you on that point...

adolph 16y ago

I'm glad you had a positive experience. Personally, I would prefer that my government did not infiltrate my social institutions, online or off, because it corrodes the trust people have for one another. In 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy, Daniel Solove writes: The problems caused by breaches of confidentiality do not merely consist of individual emotional distress; they involve a violation of trust within a relationship. There is a strong social value in ensuring that promises are kept and that trust is maintained in relationships. . . In that quote Solove is referring to a business giving info to government despite its privacy policy. I think it is germane here because one doesn't expect something labeled "friend" to be an information gathering conduit for a 3rd party (such as governmental one or even a commercial one). The essay a good read for understanding some of the dimensions of privacy in contradiction to the "I've got nothing to hide" concept, which can be a convincing argument when you think you don't have anything to hide: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565