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This is an honest question: why are people so concern about privacy when it comes to their government? What is the issue with the gov listening to my phone call

This is an honest question: why are people so concern about privacy when it comes to their government? What is the issue with the gov listening to my phone calls if I am not doing anything illegal? Note: I was once followed by the FBI because they were following someone I was spending a lot of time with. I ended being asked for a coffee by the agent. I was not worried because I had nothing to hide.

_lc1i 15y ago
What is the issue with the gov watching my girlfriend and I have sex if we're not doing anything illegal? In other words, where is the line to what is or is not the government's business, and why does the government get to determine where this line is?
- jQueryIsAwesome 15y ago
  You know why the goverment is called the goverment, right? gov·ern : Conduct the policy, actions, and affairs of (a state, organization, or people).
JanezStupar 15y ago
British would have loved to have this sort of tech back in the 18th century. Mr. Jefferson, what do you have to hide? You're not doing anything illegal are you?
- kaybe 15y ago
  I'm so glad Germany already went through the Third Reich period back when tech was just beginning. (Not that it can't happen again, but we do try to learn from history.)
  - pmr_ 15y ago
    Who do you mean by "We"? Recent news make me believe that there has been no lesson learned from anything. Right-wing terrorists sponsored by the Verfassungsschutz, Bundestrojaner, police violence, and Voratsdatenspeicherung. And most of the population does not even care about any of this. The only thing that people seem to have learned is how to hide aspirations to power and control behind some thin veil of democracy.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
devmach 15y ago
"...I ended being asked for a coffee by the agent. I was not worried because I had nothing to hide." please google : why you shouldn't talk to the police
evmar 15y ago
Here's a good paper on the subject: https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=nothing%20to%20hide%20and%20other%20misunderstandings%20of%20privacy https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=nothing%20to%20hide%20... (Would link you to it directly but the site appears down; the search results may find a mirror, but watch out for links that are essays about the paper rather than the paper itself.)
thasmin 15y ago
There are many legitimate reasons why this is a problem. I'll briefly list a few but there are many more. One is that the government workers who listen to your phone calls can use that information against you, for example if they are a business competitor. They also can create laws which target you specifically that you don't know about or can't avoid breaking. Because they make the laws, there is no recourse against anything that they do with that information.
a_a_r_o_n 15y ago
Please send all your correspondence (paper, email, phone) through me, so that I can read it and then pass it on. Now what's the difference between me and the government? In this case, nothing, because neither one of us has any legitimate interest in what you say or do, short of suspicion of a crime. A better argument might be that you should always want to minimize contact with any government, because they have power over you and they make mistakes. The costs to you for a mistake could be huge: imprisonment, loss of time, loss of money, loss of reputation. All for a mistake. Never touch the government unless absolutely necessary.
pauljburke 15y ago
If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
coffeeaddicted 15y ago
For me it's mostly because serious power abuse is coming in many cases from governments. A government is never just an impartial entity but always consists of people with subjective motives. States abusing the power they have when they can invade the privacy of their citizens is just way more common than states falling into anarchy because of insufficient control over it's citizens. Also people often do things which might be illegal although the moral legitimation for making those actions illegal is at least very questionable. Think about stuff like abortion laws (legal now in Germany, but was illegal not so long ago - so with the same tech states could have checked who visits abortion clinics), certain drug laws (many weak drugs are still illegal in Germany), laws about censorship (especially youth-protection is occasionally very strange in Germany), etc.

_lc1i 15y ago

What is the issue with the gov watching my girlfriend and I have sex if we're not doing anything illegal? In other words, where is the line to what is or is not the government's business, and why does the government get to determine where this line is?

jQueryIsAwesome 15y ago
You know why the goverment is called the goverment, right? gov·ern : Conduct the policy, actions, and affairs of (a state, organization, or people).

JanezStupar 15y ago

British would have loved to have this sort of tech back in the 18th century. Mr. Jefferson, what do you have to hide? You're not doing anything illegal are you?

kaybe 15y ago
I'm so glad Germany already went through the Third Reich period back when tech was just beginning. (Not that it can't happen again, but we do try to learn from history.)
- pmr_ 15y ago
  Who do you mean by "We"? Recent news make me believe that there has been no lesson learned from anything. Right-wing terrorists sponsored by the Verfassungsschutz, Bundestrojaner, police violence, and Voratsdatenspeicherung. And most of the population does not even care about any of this. The only thing that people seem to have learned is how to hide aspirations to power and control behind some thin veil of democracy.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

devmach 15y ago

"...I ended being asked for a coffee by the agent. I was not worried because I had nothing to hide." please google : why you shouldn't talk to the police

evmar 15y ago

Here's a good paper on the subject: https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=nothing%20to%20hide%20and%20other%20misunderstandings%20of%20privacy https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=nothing%20to%20hide%20... (Would link you to it directly but the site appears down; the search results may find a mirror, but watch out for links that are essays about the paper rather than the paper itself.)

thasmin 15y ago

There are many legitimate reasons why this is a problem. I'll briefly list a few but there are many more. One is that the government workers who listen to your phone calls can use that information against you, for example if they are a business competitor. They also can create laws which target you specifically that you don't know about or can't avoid breaking. Because they make the laws, there is no recourse against anything that they do with that information.

a_a_r_o_n 15y ago

Please send all your correspondence (paper, email, phone) through me, so that I can read it and then pass it on. Now what's the difference between me and the government? In this case, nothing, because neither one of us has any legitimate interest in what you say or do, short of suspicion of a crime. A better argument might be that you should always want to minimize contact with any government, because they have power over you and they make mistakes. The costs to you for a mistake could be huge: imprisonment, loss of time, loss of money, loss of reputation. All for a mistake. Never touch the government unless absolutely necessary.

pauljburke 15y ago

If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.

coffeeaddicted 15y ago

For me it's mostly because serious power abuse is coming in many cases from governments. A government is never just an impartial entity but always consists of people with subjective motives. States abusing the power they have when they can invade the privacy of their citizens is just way more common than states falling into anarchy because of insufficient control over it's citizens. Also people often do things which might be illegal although the moral legitimation for making those actions illegal is at least very questionable. Think about stuff like abortion laws (legal now in Germany, but was illegal not so long ago - so with the same tech states could have checked who visits abortion clinics), certain drug laws (many weak drugs are still illegal in Germany), laws about censorship (especially youth-protection is occasionally very strange in Germany), etc.