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> I point this out not because I disagree with your baseline position that privacy is valuable. I don't. I point this out because i believe that arguing for it
by darawk 7y ago
> I point this out not because I disagree with your baseline position that privacy is valuable. I don't. I point this out because i believe that arguing for it on the basis that government feelings of entitlement are somehow less legitimate than the feeling of entitlement of non-governmental constituencies is not going to be an effective strategy because it's based on a false premise.
I am not arguing that. I was explaining the process by which the feeling of entitlement arose. The argument for the legitimacy of privacy rights is one I assumed I didn't have to make at all in this venue. I suppose we could have that debate if you want, but I was not trying to make that case here.
If we assume as an axiom that privacy is a right, the question then becomes: how do we structure our governments and public institutions to protect those rights? And one answer to that is to be more intentional about which invasions of privacy we allow than perhaps we have been in the past. With the foreknowledge that governments and institutions will come to depend on any access they are given.
- lisper 7y ago> If we assume as an axiom that privacy is a right But you can't assume that. For everyone who thinks that privacy is a right you can find someone else who thinks that safety and security is a right. Neither of these follows from the laws of physics. Which one ends up being a right (or which one ends up being the more "fundamental" right that ends up trumping the other) is a function of what we as a society decide. So you can't win this fight simply by standing up on a soap box and proclaiming that privacy is a right. You have to come up with an argument for why losing privacy is a greater evil than letting the bad guys get away.
- nybble41 7y ago> For everyone who thinks that privacy is a right you can find someone else who thinks that safety and security is a right. You can't strip away people's privacy without violating their safety and security in the process. These positions are not in conflict. And "society" doesn't get to decide what is or is not a right. Individual people decide that for themselves.
- darawk 7y agoPlease read the rest of my comment. I'll say it again: None of what I am saying is an argument for privacy. We can have that debate if you want, but this is not it.
- kortilla 7y agoSecurity from the things that the violations of privacy are meant to stop is already a right. Most governments hold that children have the right to not be molested. It’s the governments duty to uphold that right whether they can read communications or not. A right to security absolutely does not mean no right to privacy. That’s a false dichotomy.