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Doesn’t look like many are reading the actual article. It sets up the “nothing to hide” argument as the following, which is quite a bit more difficult to rebut:

Doesn’t look like many are reading the actual article. It sets up the “nothing to hide” argument as the following, which is quite a bit more difficult to rebut: “ Therefore, in a more compelling form than is often expressed in popular discourse, the nothing to hide argument proceeds as follows: The NSA surveillance, data mining, or other government information- gathering programs will result in the disclosure of particular pieces of information to a few government officials, or perhaps only to government computers. This very limited disclosure of the particular information involved is not likely to be threatening to the privacy of law-abiding citizens. Only those who are engaged in illegal activities have a reason to hide this information. Although there may be some cases in which the information might be sensitive or embarrassing to law-abiding citizens, the limited disclosure lessens the threat to privacy. Moreover, the security interest in detecting, investigating, and preventing terrorist attacks is very high and outweighs whatever minimal or moderate privacy interests law-abiding citizens may have in these particular pieces of information. Cast in this manner, the nothing to hide argument is a formidable one.”

BLKNSLVR 7y ago
I'd like to turn the conversation around and question the prioritization of surveillance of the people over the transparency of politicians' communications, sources of funding, who they're meeting with and all such related activities they perform in a role servicing and paid for by the public. Only once this is addressed should we move down the priority list to "blanket communication and behavioural surveillance of the citizenry." The potential for harm to a country and it's citizens caused by political decisions is exponentially greater than any act by an individual or group with no political power. (and whilst this point is arguable and weighted with emotion, this includes 9/11).
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- aphextim 7y ago
  >Moreover, the security interest in detecting, investigating, and preventing terrorist attacks is very high and outweighs whatever minimal or moderate privacy interests law-abiding citizens may have in these particular pieces of information. No thank you, I'd give up my privacy if it could help prevent heart attacks, cancer or maybe even automobile crashes but terrorism compared to the above pale in comparison when you consider the number of deaths. Literally giving up one of the fundamentals the country was founded on for something so minor is clearly a reach of power for the government to control the population under the guise of keeping them secure. https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/05/Causes-of-death-in-USA-vs.-media-coverage.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/05/Causes-of-death-i... https://ourworldindata.org/terrorism https://ourworldindata.org/terrorism
ivanhoe 7y ago
Yes, in a perfect dream world where governments and agencies are made of perfect, valiant, James Bond kinda characters who fight only for the good causes and are never tempted to misuse the power. In reality, it's obvious that such setup potentially empowers small group of people to with equal ease control and manipulate individuals as well as large groups of people, companies and organizations by means of blackmail and access to insider informations. And the fact how easy and how extremely lucrative that could be just makes it more realistic that someone will try to do that. Lets set aside how tempting it is for most people not to snoop on their exes or current partners, or to run background checks on their daughters new boyfriend, imagine having access to info that some big company is about to default, or that some other company is on the brick of discovering something super exciting and their stocks are about to skyrocket. How many people would realistically resist the urge to monetize that info? How many political parties wouldn't want to know some dirty secret on their opponents? How many ambitious people would just let someone else get promoted even though they know some dirt on them? Further, since the only reason people would accept this type of surveillance is fear, agencies and governments are directly incentivized by it to prolong and augment the threat, as that directly benefits them and allows them to keep the position of power, to keep their jobs and budgets. Which is less than ideal setup, as it is out of balance by design. As soon as other institutions of the system weaken this will have a tendency to spiral into a fight for grabbing as much power as possible, and then potentially some sort of dictatorship, as has happened in so many societies that had strong security agencies and weak political system.
bregma 7y ago
> Cast in this manner, the nothing to hide argument is a formidable one. No. It's still the same old weak argument. "This surveillance will never be used for the wrong reasons and any level of incidental damage to innocents is acceptable, as long as we achieve our goal of preventing people from doing a narrow definition of the wrong thing." The flaws are this. (1) not only is there no definition of "the wrong reasons" ("only those who are engaged in illegal activities"), the definition can change, and experience has show that such surveillance data inevitably gets used for purposes outside of the original limited intent. Such primises are not worth the water in which they are writ. (2) The only acceptable level of incidental damage to innocent parties is zero. (3) Surveillance is often a form of terrorism. It's a well-documented historic fact (thanks, Stazi, for you predilection for recordkeeping). Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
marchenko 7y ago
It's not as formidable as it seems, once you question the premise that perfect enforcement of the laws is a desirable goal. Where, for instance, would the pressure to overturn anti-sodomy statutes come from if it were possible to monitor everyone's illicit sexual activity and pre-emptively embarrass/imprison them to prevent them from coordinating to agitate for their rights? You can replace this example with any ill-conceived outdated law of your choosing; the argument is politics-agnostic and the existence of hundreds of possible examples to draw from illustrates that ossifying our current code by making it possible to perfectly track dissenters is not a great idea for a dynamic society.
Terretta 7y ago
Super easy to rebut by noting that “metadata” reveals the nature of personal connections, legality of certain kinds of personal connections or public associations have proven to be an area the government changes its mind about, and has proven willing to take actions on that destroy lives. Tomorrow’s moral majority coupled with a total information awareness permanent record and a representative (of the majority) government? You don’t even need much imagination.

BLKNSLVR 7y ago

I'd like to turn the conversation around and question the prioritization of surveillance of the people over the transparency of politicians' communications, sources of funding, who they're meeting with and all such related activities they perform in a role servicing and paid for by the public. Only once this is addressed should we move down the priority list to "blanket communication and behavioural surveillance of the citizenry." The potential for harm to a country and it's citizens caused by political decisions is exponentially greater than any act by an individual or group with no political power. (and whilst this point is arguable and weighted with emotion, this includes 9/11).

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
aphextim 7y ago
>Moreover, the security interest in detecting, investigating, and preventing terrorist attacks is very high and outweighs whatever minimal or moderate privacy interests law-abiding citizens may have in these particular pieces of information. No thank you, I'd give up my privacy if it could help prevent heart attacks, cancer or maybe even automobile crashes but terrorism compared to the above pale in comparison when you consider the number of deaths. Literally giving up one of the fundamentals the country was founded on for something so minor is clearly a reach of power for the government to control the population under the guise of keeping them secure. https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/05/Causes-of-death-in-USA-vs.-media-coverage.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/05/Causes-of-death-i... https://ourworldindata.org/terrorism https://ourworldindata.org/terrorism

ivanhoe 7y ago

Yes, in a perfect dream world where governments and agencies are made of perfect, valiant, James Bond kinda characters who fight only for the good causes and are never tempted to misuse the power. In reality, it's obvious that such setup potentially empowers small group of people to with equal ease control and manipulate individuals as well as large groups of people, companies and organizations by means of blackmail and access to insider informations. And the fact how easy and how extremely lucrative that could be just makes it more realistic that someone will try to do that. Lets set aside how tempting it is for most people not to snoop on their exes or current partners, or to run background checks on their daughters new boyfriend, imagine having access to info that some big company is about to default, or that some other company is on the brick of discovering something super exciting and their stocks are about to skyrocket. How many people would realistically resist the urge to monetize that info? How many political parties wouldn't want to know some dirty secret on their opponents? How many ambitious people would just let someone else get promoted even though they know some dirt on them? Further, since the only reason people would accept this type of surveillance is fear, agencies and governments are directly incentivized by it to prolong and augment the threat, as that directly benefits them and allows them to keep the position of power, to keep their jobs and budgets. Which is less than ideal setup, as it is out of balance by design. As soon as other institutions of the system weaken this will have a tendency to spiral into a fight for grabbing as much power as possible, and then potentially some sort of dictatorship, as has happened in so many societies that had strong security agencies and weak political system.

bregma 7y ago

> Cast in this manner, the nothing to hide argument is a formidable one. No. It's still the same old weak argument. "This surveillance will never be used for the wrong reasons and any level of incidental damage to innocents is acceptable, as long as we achieve our goal of preventing people from doing a narrow definition of the wrong thing." The flaws are this. (1) not only is there no definition of "the wrong reasons" ("only those who are engaged in illegal activities"), the definition can change, and experience has show that such surveillance data inevitably gets used for purposes outside of the original limited intent. Such primises are not worth the water in which they are writ. (2) The only acceptable level of incidental damage to innocent parties is zero. (3) Surveillance is often a form of terrorism. It's a well-documented historic fact (thanks, Stazi, for you predilection for recordkeeping). Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

marchenko 7y ago

It's not as formidable as it seems, once you question the premise that perfect enforcement of the laws is a desirable goal. Where, for instance, would the pressure to overturn anti-sodomy statutes come from if it were possible to monitor everyone's illicit sexual activity and pre-emptively embarrass/imprison them to prevent them from coordinating to agitate for their rights? You can replace this example with any ill-conceived outdated law of your choosing; the argument is politics-agnostic and the existence of hundreds of possible examples to draw from illustrates that ossifying our current code by making it possible to perfectly track dissenters is not a great idea for a dynamic society.

Terretta 7y ago

Super easy to rebut by noting that “metadata” reveals the nature of personal connections, legality of certain kinds of personal connections or public associations have proven to be an area the government changes its mind about, and has proven willing to take actions on that destroy lives. Tomorrow’s moral majority coupled with a total information awareness permanent record and a representative (of the majority) government? You don’t even need much imagination.