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> right to a personal life unscrutinized by an overreaching state. If it was just the state, then I might even be able to live with it, as my trust in my gover

> right to a personal life unscrutinized by an overreaching state. If it was just the state, then I might even be able to live with it, as my trust in my government is rather high, even if I do agree with your second paragraph on principle. The problem though is that lax/non-existent privacy laws also allow Joe in marketing and his friends to do all kinds of creepy privacy-invading things, which I worry about much more. It fosters a mentality and culture around how to get the easiest to those who are most susceptible to whatever it is your peddling, and in today's day and age of social media I think it's fair to say that it's increasingly clear that that kind of culture isn't exactly a net favor for humanity as a whole. It's probably naive from me but I'm honestly much more worried about big tech and their nonchalant approach to privacy than I am about dangers of my government going full surveillance state. The two issues are of course not entirely separate either, they're very much intertwined.

pjc50 3y ago
Don't forget the press. I had occasion to look up Chris Huhne (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Huhne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Huhne) as the energy secretary who kicked off the UK new nuclear programme, and right at the top of his wikipedia is .. the phone hacking scandal. Private surveillance by the press, which has been used for a wide variety of malicious gossip purposes rather than any kind of "speaking truth to power".
theonlybutlet 3y ago
A good example is Venezuela, this was a car crash in slow motion. I remember the incremental changes made to law being reported right throughout Hugo Chávez' term in office right from the beginning. He was wildly popular everyone trusted him, many warned of its implications each time a law was proposed and reported. And here we are today, Venezuela is a dictatorship. As the saying goes, it happens slowly and then all at once.
southernplaces7 3y ago
>as my trust in my government is rather high Then you're very fortunate to live in one of the minority of places in the world where government is even moderately trustworthy. Many, possibly most people, dont and the tools of the surveillance state are increasingly being applied by their governments to further repress possible sources of change from that governing mean.

pjc50 3y ago

Don't forget the press. I had occasion to look up Chris Huhne (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Huhne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Huhne) as the energy secretary who kicked off the UK new nuclear programme, and right at the top of his wikipedia is .. the phone hacking scandal. Private surveillance by the press, which has been used for a wide variety of malicious gossip purposes rather than any kind of "speaking truth to power".

theonlybutlet 3y ago

A good example is Venezuela, this was a car crash in slow motion. I remember the incremental changes made to law being reported right throughout Hugo Chávez' term in office right from the beginning. He was wildly popular everyone trusted him, many warned of its implications each time a law was proposed and reported. And here we are today, Venezuela is a dictatorship. As the saying goes, it happens slowly and then all at once.

southernplaces7 3y ago

>as my trust in my government is rather high Then you're very fortunate to live in one of the minority of places in the world where government is even moderately trustworthy. Many, possibly most people, dont and the tools of the surveillance state are increasingly being applied by their governments to further repress possible sources of change from that governing mean.