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"I've got nothing to hide" and other misunderstandings of privacy

131 points by clicks 14y ago

clicks 14y ago
Direct pdf link: http://crysp.uwaterloo.ca/courses/pet/F07/cache/solove.pdf http://crysp.uwaterloo.ca/courses/pet/F07/cache/solove.pdf
ChuckMcM 14y ago
That is a pretty good write up. I really like the point that 'privacy is only a desire to hide wrong things' when in fact it is a basic personal security issue.
tnash 14y ago
I think the most powerful argument here is that just because one may think that they have nothing to hide, and they don't mind "having their picture taken naked and distributed to their neighbors" doesn't mean that they should enforce their beliefs on others.
- msellout 14y ago
  That goes both ways. Just because one wants to keep secrets doesn't mean you should stop someone else who wants to know everything. To make the case for who is wrongly imposing their will, we need need a framework for measuring goodness. The author goes in that direction, talking about measuring the societal benefits of privacy and the systemic harms that privacy protects against. However, the "secondary use" harm wasn't very compelling. Contract law seems to be the proper way to handle that, rather than privacy. A better argument was that privacy protects free thought. Unfortunately, he mentioned it too briefly and didn't discuss the conflict of free speech and privacy in enough detail. Perhaps there wasn't enough space, but I think more explanation of how privacy expands "the range of viewpoints being expressed and the degree of freedom with which to engage in political activity." After all, those viewpoints are of little value to society before they are shared widely. One could argue that it's not privacy that is important, but protection against retaliation.
  - dredmorbius 14y ago
    False dichotomy. The reverse of keeping secrets (asserting your right to privacy) isn't allowing others full snoop powers (denying your right to privacy), but allowing another to practice full disclosure (asserting their right to freely reveal all).
- OmegaHN 14y ago
  Playing Devil's Advocate here (I actually agree with you), the main argument against privacy is that it hampers effective and just running of the government. Simply put, the government must gather such information to work in the way that it is told to (we elected almost all of these people, remember). An example of this working properly is search warrants: the government can and will search your private property without your permission, a clear invasion of privacy, but acceptable as it leads to a better justice system. Yes, the government is limited in what it can search, but that power is still held by the government even if the person in question doesn't agree with it. The question shouldn't be about protecting privacy; it should be about being fair with how the government invades it. For example, the body scanners could be considered not fair as they invade more people's privacy than necessary (or they could be fair if they didn't).
cavilling_elite 14y ago
He has a book out: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0300172311 http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0300172311 Giving to my father for Christmas. He is in the "nothing to hide" camp.
- 01Michael10 14y ago
  I hope the posting of a mobile link is not a new trend. Here is the Amazon link of the book for people who prefer to view the Internet on screens larger then 4"... http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Hide-Tradeoff-between-Security/dp/0300172311 http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Hide-Tradeoff-between-Security...
  - cavilling_elite 14y ago
    Sorry, I was on mobile, I thought it automatically jumped to the full site.
- garmega 14y ago
  I like to remind people in that camp that I have the right to hide nothing. I may very well have "nothing to hide" but I also have the right to hide that.
- Kiro 14y ago
  I'm also in that camp and certainly hope no-one gives me that (or any other political propaganda) for Christmas. Why can't you just accept your father's opinion instead?
  - slowpoke 14y ago
    The bad thing about the "nothing to hide" camp usually isn't their opinion that they themselves have nothing to hide, but the fact that the majority of these people seem to want to force this opinion on the rest of society. Fine, live your rose-colored post-privacy life. But leave me the fuck out of it. I have things to hide. Everyone has. You included.
    - 14y ago
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
dchichkov 14y ago
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” ― Benjamin Franklin
- slowpoke 14y 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." - Cardinal Richelieu
clobber 14y ago
Thread on reddit /r/privacy where they tried to summarize the "I've got nothing to hide" paper and argument: http://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/10sui8/tldr_for_ive_got_nothing_to_hide_paper/ http://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/10sui8/tldr_for_ive...
iwwr 14y ago
In short, at the risk of trivializing the argument: The ability to gleam private details about people is having some power over them. The entire modern theory of government rests on limiting and dividing up the power of those in power. With mass surveillance, that balance is broken. Not only do we have private details on individuals, that knowledge is held by a small and unaccountable elite, protected by state secrets. Even if you live completely lawfully and morally and truly have nothing to hide you can either: 1. Unwittingly do something illegal (there are too many laws on the books for anyone to know they are completely innocent); or do something that can be construed as such, since the police and prosecutors can be fallible; 2. Still live in a society where a small group of individuals can exert blackmail and intimidation on a significant proportion of citizens. Even if that power would be rarely used, it creates an environment of fear. People start to be afraid to speak against abuse, those in power stand less for their own scrutiny.
- techsupporter 14y ago
  The "unwittingly do something illegal" is the most common refutation I've heard used. I think it's the most powerful as an example of the fallacy of this argument and an example of how unwieldy our laws have become in the United States. A coworker used the following story, apt since he lives in a state bordering another country: "Let's say I go to Canada for a day trip, Montreal perhaps. I speak enough French to get around but it's not so good after an evening of drinking and socializing. The next morning, I wake up with a powerful hangover headache. A pharmacy is nearby, but my head is pounding too hard to read the labels so I go to the pharmacist. In broken French, I ask him for some Tylenol. He asks me 'what kind?' 'Just one,' I reply. He sells me a small bottle with a Tylenol label; I pop a couple and put the rest in my bag. After I return home--declaring 'nothing' at the border, of course, since I forgot about the bottle of medicine--I find the bottle and notice the word 'Codeine' on the label. Canada sells 'Tylenol One,' a compound with this addition. I'm technically guilty of felony drug trafficking of a schedule 2 narcotic into the United States as well as felony concealment (drugs). Are you certain you've never done something seemingly innocent that's actually a serious crime?"
  - wippler 14y ago
flipstewart 14y ago
I value my privacy, so I do not have a Google account, and I cannot read this write up.
- clicks 14y ago
  Direct pdf link: http://crysp.uwaterloo.ca/courses/pet/F07/cache/solove.pdf http://crysp.uwaterloo.ca/courses/pet/F07/cache/solove.pdf
- throwaway64 14y ago
  You do not receive the Google Docs login prompt if your browser is not logged into Google at all. You do, however, receive the login prompt if your browser is logged in through another Google service (like search). Check to make sure nobody has you logged into Google search or something. This sort of half logged in status is very annoying.
clicks 14y ago
Also worth reading is a piece titled "Conceptualizing Privacy" by the same author, available here: http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/californialawreview/vol90/iss4/2/ http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/californialawreview/vol9...
sunahsuh 14y ago
If you care about provenance, as I do, let me save you some Googling: 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy Daniel J. Solove George Washington University Law School San Diego Law Review, Vol. 44, p. 745, 2007 GWU Law School Public Law Research Paper No. 289 (From: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565)
munin 14y ago
there's something that frustrates me about arguments like this. I think that technology is inescapably taking us towards a future where anyone and everyone can record everything that any individual does, perpetually, and at arbitrary scale. In many ways we are already there, especially in certain domains (gmail, facebook, cell phones, creep shots, etc). It sounds pessimistic to say "this is inevitable" and I'm sure many people (myself included!) want that to be wrong, but given the technology we produce and the limited degree of control we have over its use, I don't see any alternative. So the present and future allow for democratized mass surveillance, never mind what your government can do. What is our societal response? Make this illegal? I doubt the effectiveness of that, both against the common man / criminal and also against the government. If you are already terrified that the government will break any of its own laws to watch you (and perhaps this terror is justified), then how would the government passing laws limiting its own abilities allay any of your fears? I don't see how it would. I'm then annoyed because we seem to be standing on the deck of the Titanic wishing virulently that water wasn't wet. This is the future, and it's coming, and the government will have these records, and private companies will have these records, and countless individuals will have these records. What are we meaningfully going to do? Pass laws? Are we simply going to will back the clock to when this wasn't possible? Or should we instead start to talk about what this future, recorded, society will look like? I welcome an effective "call to action" response to turn back the tide of mass surveillance...
- fragsworth 14y ago
  Maybe the solution should involve some sort of mass surveillance of the government itself, by the citizens.
  - munin 14y ago
    I've argued that this is an outcome of a democratic "everyone watches everyone" society. however, some problems. someone has to have some monopoly on force? So the government has to have some information that is secret, for example, information about suspects in a criminal investigation. although it's possible that in a fully recorded society that need would go away! a police investigation would simply consist of reviewing the evidence recorded and acting, and a suspect couldn't run because everything is monitored and recorded. this sounds pretty terrible! and I think it would be, unless, the institutions of a democratic and just society were preserved. given that any crime would come attached with "the whole truth" recorded, trials might be easier? cardinal richelieu is purported to have said "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.", but I'm not sure if 15th-century French monarchy is the same government as a modern-day democracy (say what you will about Manning et al) ...
Tichy 14y ago
I am already to enter arguments about religion online. Who knows what the fanatics are capable of. I guess it should be possible to communicate anonymously for similar reasons as voting should be done anonymously.
hooande 14y ago
Let me try to present the other side of this argument in a way that doesn't sound crazy: When one of your people dies, it really hurts. If you were the one in charge of guaranteeing the safety of that person, its a failure much deeper and more profound than the worst startup company failure. Most people will be willing to do anything to prevent the loss of another life on their watch. The monitoring of communications seems almost small in comparison to the lengths that many would go to. There are practical reasons for government monitoring of communications. Bad people have existed long enough that it's safe to assume the trend will continue. [1] Listening to their communications is the best way to stop them, or at least to ensure that they can't act openly. Very few innocent people will ever know that they're being monitored, and the risks to those people are very small. Privacy could easily considered to be a basic right of all people. But it lives in a continuum like everything else that we value. Some times it's better if the government errs on the side of caution. And most of the time, people have nothing to hide. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents
- csense 14y ago
  Here's a refutation of the parent's position. Let's take the following premise as given: Most Americans will say "I support our troops, because they're willing to lay their life on the line -- and sometimes lay it down -- to protect our freedoms." Or, as Patrick Henry put it when this country was fighting for independence from Great Britain: "Give me liberty or give me death!" [1] These examples imply that most of us think of our freedoms as something that we won't automatically give up when the alternative is putting our lives on the line. NB, I'm not saying we won't give up our freedoms when faced with an alternative of certain death. I'm saying most of us are willing to fight for our freedoms even if it means accepting a significant risk of death. I speak only for the USA; the viewpoints of other countries and cultures may be quite different. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give_me_Liberty,_or_give_me_Death http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give_me_Liberty,_or_give_me_Dea...!
- noarchy 14y ago
  To anyone who favours a free society, your argument may not sound crazy, but it sounds dangerous. Most apologetics written on behalf of a surveillance state seem to ignore the unsavoury elements of the government itself. Instead of becoming more transparent, governments are wanting to keep more secrets, while demanding that more of yours be exposed. Governments usually do have something to hide, ranging from corruption to murderous adventures abroad (sometimes not even abroad). This is not an institution that I trust to monitor me for "my own good".
vy8vWJlco 14y ago
"McCarthyism"... Thank's Joseph McCarthy, for giving us a word for it.
Dove 14y ago
I don't think this is a very strong piece. The essay proceeds in three broad sections. In the first, he unpacks the "I've got nothing to hide" argument into its strongest form, and does a fine job of it. In the second, he talks about privacy as a concept, notes that it's difficult to define, and instead enumerates a list of privacy-related problems. In the final section, he tries to explain why the "I've got nothing to hide" argument is flawed. Except that I didn't come out of that last section feeling I'd encountered a strong argument. It seemed like the author was waving his hands and saying, "There's a strong argument over this way -- it's Kafkaesque, not Orwellian!" But I never did encounter it. That's a shame. I was sort of hoping he'd go through his list of potential problems, and talk about how each could become an actual problem. The best argument I saw was that the accumulation of information represents power over the individual. I might put it like this: The more information the government has about you, the greater the chance you and an ill-considered law or policy will have an unfortunate encounter in the future. I still think that deserves a bit more unpacking, though.
zmmmmm 14y ago
It's interesting how people struggle with this argument. Just the fact that this guy needs to write a 30 page essay to explain the point tells you something. However I tend to stop short of this kind of analysis, because it all seems to be trying too hard. My argument, is that in the end it's just biological. We're built this way (not all, but most of us). Perhaps for good reasons, perhaps not, but it doesn't really matter. We can't rationalize or deconstruct it any better than we can needing sex, fearing the dark or the extreme reaction a person has to waterboarding. It just is how it is - we evolved to want privacy, and now we need it and that's that. Trying to deconstruct "why" we want it at a deeper level might be interesting, but it is not useful for producing counter arguments to the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" argument, in fact it is counterproductive, because it values the most important argument of all with zero weight. Further it just prompts people to come up with "solutions" that address the lower level issues and still leave us with our biological sense of privacy invasion.
- shantanubala 14y ago
  I'd be careful not to attribute unexplained aspects of our desires and behavior to biology alone. A lot of it can be a social construction. If you're used to having your privacy regularly invaded from a very young age, it's possible that you won't have any "biological sense" of privacy invasion. Does our intuitive sense of biology come from our genes, or our cultural value of "personal space"? The fact that we have weird reactions to nudity and social norms that prevent us from sharing the most intimate details of our lives indicates that it may be a cultural thing. Obviously, this just makes privacy invasion on a systematic level even more ominous.
chacham15 14y ago
My point of view is very simple: I believe in freedom of speech. If I feel like someone is watching and trying to understand every word I write, I cannot write freely for fear of misinterpretation or misunderstanding. Hyperbole like "I feel like killing my boss" is the first to go. The person I am speaking to knows what I mean by my statements and I feel confident that he does. Having someone listen in on my conversations would take away that feeling of freedom. The law even has similar provisions: attorney-client privilege is only applicable if the two people have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
- alan_cx 14y ago
  Not worried about a down vote here? I wrote out a big old reply to this article, and canned it. I was worried about a load of down votes. I didn't want to be judged badly by a decent community. I was worried my opinion would be a downer or some how anti-American / Capitalist / Western. So I self censored. And that's just a hacker's news aggregation site. Dunno what point Im trying to make, but were we ever really free to make out true opinion's public? Who do we fear more; government or our peers?
  - chacham15 14y ago
    This is exactly the point that I was trying to make: when we write here, its in public. We have the expectation to be judged for what we say. Could you imagine if you had that feeling writing to your friends in private?
    - thibauts 14y ago
      Of course knowing we could be observed has profound effects on our behavior. I wonder if any studies show it. This looks a lot like what religion can induce, and I would really like to see what happens once you ask people to "confess". I was about to say bad things about this all, but I won't. I'm not sure who's listening in, and who knows who will, tomorrow...
      - dchichkov 14y ago
ajb 14y ago
It's ironic that this article is on google docs, which means I have to declare my identity by logging in to google in order to read it.
- vacri 14y ago
  I was able to read it just fine in a browser (IE) in which I've never logged into anything and only use for testing statements like this.
  - ajb 14y ago
    Most people would not be able to do that.
SparrowOS 14y ago
God always wins. God says... forth as the lightning: and the LORD God shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds of the south. 9:15 The LORD of hosts shall defend them; and they shall devour, and subdue with sling stones; and they shall drink, and make a noise as through wine; and they shall be filled like bowls, and as the corners of the altar. 9:16 And the LORD their God shall save them in that day as the flock of his people: for they shall be as the stones of a crown, lifted up as an ensign upon his land. 9:17 For how great is his goodness, and how great is his beauty! corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine the maids. 10:1 Ask ye of the LORD rain in the time of the latter rain; so the LORD shall make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field. 10:2 For the idols have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and have told false dreams; they comfort in vain: therefore they went their way as a flock, they were troubled, because there was no shepherd.
cafebabe 14y ago
In my eyes, the most important argument for protecting your data in any case is that you lose the control on how the data is interpreted by anyone. Privacy just limits the possible (legal) perspectives anyone can have on you. Any data you lose can be used as facts, even if they are out of context, incomplete or perceived or stored in a way that distorts the data. Any data collected leads to reversal of evidence. And it is much harder to fight that, because you have to attack the technical aspects on how the data is collected and/or what is wrong with the data (by giving up more information).
diminoten 14y ago
Privacy, or a lack of it, requires an additional failure (corruption, or ignorance) to become a problem. So it's not privacy, it's ignorance and corruption we should fight for/against.
- dredmorbius 14y ago
  And yet, perfection in knowledge or execution of duties are impossible, so corruption and ignorance are givens.
  - diminoten 14y ago
    Corruption isn't.
onoj 14y ago
A simple concern on this topic: When my day to day life is public online: a)strangers know when I am on vacation and my house is empty b) given the standard misunderstandings amongst people - what they can check about what I am doing via online tools and it differs from what they expect - and they never have to let me know they know (a seed for massive misunderstandings) Both a and b open my life to problems out of my control. Irrelevant of the life I am living. Thus the need for privacy.
thirdtruck 14y ago
I haven't quite figured out how the hyperbolic "I've got nothing to hide" gets past the issue of account passwords. Even if we assume a new "real name only" global system of online identities, that would still require that false testimony or simple errors never get attached to such identities.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
thirdtruck 14y ago
Did you know that you can get in trouble for lending a CD in the UK, which lacks the fair use laws found in the US? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4960226 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4960226
teeja 14y ago
I see no reason to come up with examples apart from the US Gov's response to the massive Wikileaks cable publication. Ignore for a moment that some of the 'secrets' were about illegalities, and recognize that the US Gov has things it NEEDS to hide. We all do, and anyone who says "if you have nothing..." is clearly naive about life. Back when the first teletype BBS's appeared, I pimped for having no passwords and a wide-open system. My plea was met with complete silence, and subsequently life schooled me in the whys and wherefores and wisdom of that silence. The first thing to know is: not everybody is your friend.

131 points by clicks 14y ago

Direct pdf link: http://crysp.uwaterloo.ca/courses/pet/F07/cache/solove.pdf http://crysp.uwaterloo.ca/courses/pet/F07/cache/solove.pdf

ChuckMcM 14y ago

That is a pretty good write up. I really like the point that 'privacy is only a desire to hide wrong things' when in fact it is a basic personal security issue.

tnash 14y ago

I think the most powerful argument here is that just because one may think that they have nothing to hide, and they don't mind "having their picture taken naked and distributed to their neighbors" doesn't mean that they should enforce their beliefs on others.

msellout 14y ago
That goes both ways. Just because one wants to keep secrets doesn't mean you should stop someone else who wants to know everything. To make the case for who is wrongly imposing their will, we need need a framework for measuring goodness. The author goes in that direction, talking about measuring the societal benefits of privacy and the systemic harms that privacy protects against. However, the "secondary use" harm wasn't very compelling. Contract law seems to be the proper way to handle that, rather than privacy. A better argument was that privacy protects free thought. Unfortunately, he mentioned it too briefly and didn't discuss the conflict of free speech and privacy in enough detail. Perhaps there wasn't enough space, but I think more explanation of how privacy expands "the range of viewpoints being expressed and the degree of freedom with which to engage in political activity." After all, those viewpoints are of little value to society before they are shared widely. One could argue that it's not privacy that is important, but protection against retaliation.
- dredmorbius 14y ago
  False dichotomy. The reverse of keeping secrets (asserting your right to privacy) isn't allowing others full snoop powers (denying your right to privacy), but allowing another to practice full disclosure (asserting their right to freely reveal all).
OmegaHN 14y ago
Playing Devil's Advocate here (I actually agree with you), the main argument against privacy is that it hampers effective and just running of the government. Simply put, the government must gather such information to work in the way that it is told to (we elected almost all of these people, remember). An example of this working properly is search warrants: the government can and will search your private property without your permission, a clear invasion of privacy, but acceptable as it leads to a better justice system. Yes, the government is limited in what it can search, but that power is still held by the government even if the person in question doesn't agree with it. The question shouldn't be about protecting privacy; it should be about being fair with how the government invades it. For example, the body scanners could be considered not fair as they invade more people's privacy than necessary (or they could be fair if they didn't).

cavilling_elite 14y ago

He has a book out: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0300172311 http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0300172311 Giving to my father for Christmas. He is in the "nothing to hide" camp.

01Michael10 14y ago
I hope the posting of a mobile link is not a new trend. Here is the Amazon link of the book for people who prefer to view the Internet on screens larger then 4"... http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Hide-Tradeoff-between-Security/dp/0300172311 http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Hide-Tradeoff-between-Security...
- cavilling_elite 14y ago
  Sorry, I was on mobile, I thought it automatically jumped to the full site.
garmega 14y ago
I like to remind people in that camp that I have the right to hide nothing. I may very well have "nothing to hide" but I also have the right to hide that.
Kiro 14y ago
I'm also in that camp and certainly hope no-one gives me that (or any other political propaganda) for Christmas. Why can't you just accept your father's opinion instead?
- slowpoke 14y ago
  The bad thing about the "nothing to hide" camp usually isn't their opinion that they themselves have nothing to hide, but the fact that the majority of these people seem to want to force this opinion on the rest of society. Fine, live your rose-colored post-privacy life. But leave me the fuck out of it. I have things to hide. Everyone has. You included.
  - 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

dchichkov 14y ago

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” ― Benjamin Franklin

slowpoke 14y 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." - Cardinal Richelieu

clobber 14y ago

Thread on reddit /r/privacy where they tried to summarize the "I've got nothing to hide" paper and argument: http://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/10sui8/tldr_for_ive_got_nothing_to_hide_paper/ http://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/10sui8/tldr_for_ive...

iwwr 14y ago

In short, at the risk of trivializing the argument: The ability to gleam private details about people is having some power over them. The entire modern theory of government rests on limiting and dividing up the power of those in power. With mass surveillance, that balance is broken. Not only do we have private details on individuals, that knowledge is held by a small and unaccountable elite, protected by state secrets. Even if you live completely lawfully and morally and truly have nothing to hide you can either: 1. Unwittingly do something illegal (there are too many laws on the books for anyone to know they are completely innocent); or do something that can be construed as such, since the police and prosecutors can be fallible; 2. Still live in a society where a small group of individuals can exert blackmail and intimidation on a significant proportion of citizens. Even if that power would be rarely used, it creates an environment of fear. People start to be afraid to speak against abuse, those in power stand less for their own scrutiny.

techsupporter 14y ago
The "unwittingly do something illegal" is the most common refutation I've heard used. I think it's the most powerful as an example of the fallacy of this argument and an example of how unwieldy our laws have become in the United States. A coworker used the following story, apt since he lives in a state bordering another country: "Let's say I go to Canada for a day trip, Montreal perhaps. I speak enough French to get around but it's not so good after an evening of drinking and socializing. The next morning, I wake up with a powerful hangover headache. A pharmacy is nearby, but my head is pounding too hard to read the labels so I go to the pharmacist. In broken French, I ask him for some Tylenol. He asks me 'what kind?' 'Just one,' I reply. He sells me a small bottle with a Tylenol label; I pop a couple and put the rest in my bag. After I return home--declaring 'nothing' at the border, of course, since I forgot about the bottle of medicine--I find the bottle and notice the word 'Codeine' on the label. Canada sells 'Tylenol One,' a compound with this addition. I'm technically guilty of felony drug trafficking of a schedule 2 narcotic into the United States as well as felony concealment (drugs). Are you certain you've never done something seemingly innocent that's actually a serious crime?"
- wippler 14y ago

flipstewart 14y ago

I value my privacy, so I do not have a Google account, and I cannot read this write up.

clicks 14y ago
Direct pdf link: http://crysp.uwaterloo.ca/courses/pet/F07/cache/solove.pdf http://crysp.uwaterloo.ca/courses/pet/F07/cache/solove.pdf
throwaway64 14y ago
You do not receive the Google Docs login prompt if your browser is not logged into Google at all. You do, however, receive the login prompt if your browser is logged in through another Google service (like search). Check to make sure nobody has you logged into Google search or something. This sort of half logged in status is very annoying.

clicks 14y ago

Also worth reading is a piece titled "Conceptualizing Privacy" by the same author, available here: http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/californialawreview/vol90/iss4/2/ http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/californialawreview/vol9...

sunahsuh 14y ago

If you care about provenance, as I do, let me save you some Googling: 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy Daniel J. Solove George Washington University Law School San Diego Law Review, Vol. 44, p. 745, 2007 GWU Law School Public Law Research Paper No. 289 (From: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565)

munin 14y ago

there's something that frustrates me about arguments like this. I think that technology is inescapably taking us towards a future where anyone and everyone can record everything that any individual does, perpetually, and at arbitrary scale. In many ways we are already there, especially in certain domains (gmail, facebook, cell phones, creep shots, etc). It sounds pessimistic to say "this is inevitable" and I'm sure many people (myself included!) want that to be wrong, but given the technology we produce and the limited degree of control we have over its use, I don't see any alternative. So the present and future allow for democratized mass surveillance, never mind what your government can do. What is our societal response? Make this illegal? I doubt the effectiveness of that, both against the common man / criminal and also against the government. If you are already terrified that the government will break any of its own laws to watch you (and perhaps this terror is justified), then how would the government passing laws limiting its own abilities allay any of your fears? I don't see how it would. I'm then annoyed because we seem to be standing on the deck of the Titanic wishing virulently that water wasn't wet. This is the future, and it's coming, and the government will have these records, and private companies will have these records, and countless individuals will have these records. What are we meaningfully going to do? Pass laws? Are we simply going to will back the clock to when this wasn't possible? Or should we instead start to talk about what this future, recorded, society will look like? I welcome an effective "call to action" response to turn back the tide of mass surveillance...

fragsworth 14y ago
Maybe the solution should involve some sort of mass surveillance of the government itself, by the citizens.
- munin 14y ago
  I've argued that this is an outcome of a democratic "everyone watches everyone" society. however, some problems. someone has to have some monopoly on force? So the government has to have some information that is secret, for example, information about suspects in a criminal investigation. although it's possible that in a fully recorded society that need would go away! a police investigation would simply consist of reviewing the evidence recorded and acting, and a suspect couldn't run because everything is monitored and recorded. this sounds pretty terrible! and I think it would be, unless, the institutions of a democratic and just society were preserved. given that any crime would come attached with "the whole truth" recorded, trials might be easier? cardinal richelieu is purported to have said "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.", but I'm not sure if 15th-century French monarchy is the same government as a modern-day democracy (say what you will about Manning et al) ...

Tichy 14y ago

I am already to enter arguments about religion online. Who knows what the fanatics are capable of. I guess it should be possible to communicate anonymously for similar reasons as voting should be done anonymously.

hooande 14y ago

Let me try to present the other side of this argument in a way that doesn't sound crazy: When one of your people dies, it really hurts. If you were the one in charge of guaranteeing the safety of that person, its a failure much deeper and more profound than the worst startup company failure. Most people will be willing to do anything to prevent the loss of another life on their watch. The monitoring of communications seems almost small in comparison to the lengths that many would go to. There are practical reasons for government monitoring of communications. Bad people have existed long enough that it's safe to assume the trend will continue. [1] Listening to their communications is the best way to stop them, or at least to ensure that they can't act openly. Very few innocent people will ever know that they're being monitored, and the risks to those people are very small. Privacy could easily considered to be a basic right of all people. But it lives in a continuum like everything else that we value. Some times it's better if the government errs on the side of caution. And most of the time, people have nothing to hide. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents

csense 14y ago
Here's a refutation of the parent's position. Let's take the following premise as given: Most Americans will say "I support our troops, because they're willing to lay their life on the line -- and sometimes lay it down -- to protect our freedoms." Or, as Patrick Henry put it when this country was fighting for independence from Great Britain: "Give me liberty or give me death!" [1] These examples imply that most of us think of our freedoms as something that we won't automatically give up when the alternative is putting our lives on the line. NB, I'm not saying we won't give up our freedoms when faced with an alternative of certain death. I'm saying most of us are willing to fight for our freedoms even if it means accepting a significant risk of death. I speak only for the USA; the viewpoints of other countries and cultures may be quite different. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give_me_Liberty,_or_give_me_Death http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give_me_Liberty,_or_give_me_Dea...!
noarchy 14y ago
To anyone who favours a free society, your argument may not sound crazy, but it sounds dangerous. Most apologetics written on behalf of a surveillance state seem to ignore the unsavoury elements of the government itself. Instead of becoming more transparent, governments are wanting to keep more secrets, while demanding that more of yours be exposed. Governments usually do have something to hide, ranging from corruption to murderous adventures abroad (sometimes not even abroad). This is not an institution that I trust to monitor me for "my own good".

vy8vWJlco 14y ago

"McCarthyism"... Thank's Joseph McCarthy, for giving us a word for it.

Dove 14y ago

I don't think this is a very strong piece. The essay proceeds in three broad sections. In the first, he unpacks the "I've got nothing to hide" argument into its strongest form, and does a fine job of it. In the second, he talks about privacy as a concept, notes that it's difficult to define, and instead enumerates a list of privacy-related problems. In the final section, he tries to explain why the "I've got nothing to hide" argument is flawed. Except that I didn't come out of that last section feeling I'd encountered a strong argument. It seemed like the author was waving his hands and saying, "There's a strong argument over this way -- it's Kafkaesque, not Orwellian!" But I never did encounter it. That's a shame. I was sort of hoping he'd go through his list of potential problems, and talk about how each could become an actual problem. The best argument I saw was that the accumulation of information represents power over the individual. I might put it like this: The more information the government has about you, the greater the chance you and an ill-considered law or policy will have an unfortunate encounter in the future. I still think that deserves a bit more unpacking, though.

zmmmmm 14y ago

It's interesting how people struggle with this argument. Just the fact that this guy needs to write a 30 page essay to explain the point tells you something. However I tend to stop short of this kind of analysis, because it all seems to be trying too hard. My argument, is that in the end it's just biological. We're built this way (not all, but most of us). Perhaps for good reasons, perhaps not, but it doesn't really matter. We can't rationalize or deconstruct it any better than we can needing sex, fearing the dark or the extreme reaction a person has to waterboarding. It just is how it is - we evolved to want privacy, and now we need it and that's that. Trying to deconstruct "why" we want it at a deeper level might be interesting, but it is not useful for producing counter arguments to the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" argument, in fact it is counterproductive, because it values the most important argument of all with zero weight. Further it just prompts people to come up with "solutions" that address the lower level issues and still leave us with our biological sense of privacy invasion.

shantanubala 14y ago
I'd be careful not to attribute unexplained aspects of our desires and behavior to biology alone. A lot of it can be a social construction. If you're used to having your privacy regularly invaded from a very young age, it's possible that you won't have any "biological sense" of privacy invasion. Does our intuitive sense of biology come from our genes, or our cultural value of "personal space"? The fact that we have weird reactions to nudity and social norms that prevent us from sharing the most intimate details of our lives indicates that it may be a cultural thing. Obviously, this just makes privacy invasion on a systematic level even more ominous.

chacham15 14y ago

My point of view is very simple: I believe in freedom of speech. If I feel like someone is watching and trying to understand every word I write, I cannot write freely for fear of misinterpretation or misunderstanding. Hyperbole like "I feel like killing my boss" is the first to go. The person I am speaking to knows what I mean by my statements and I feel confident that he does. Having someone listen in on my conversations would take away that feeling of freedom. The law even has similar provisions: attorney-client privilege is only applicable if the two people have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

alan_cx 14y ago
Not worried about a down vote here? I wrote out a big old reply to this article, and canned it. I was worried about a load of down votes. I didn't want to be judged badly by a decent community. I was worried my opinion would be a downer or some how anti-American / Capitalist / Western. So I self censored. And that's just a hacker's news aggregation site. Dunno what point Im trying to make, but were we ever really free to make out true opinion's public? Who do we fear more; government or our peers?
- chacham15 14y ago
  This is exactly the point that I was trying to make: when we write here, its in public. We have the expectation to be judged for what we say. Could you imagine if you had that feeling writing to your friends in private?
  - thibauts 14y ago
    Of course knowing we could be observed has profound effects on our behavior. I wonder if any studies show it. This looks a lot like what religion can induce, and I would really like to see what happens once you ask people to "confess". I was about to say bad things about this all, but I won't. I'm not sure who's listening in, and who knows who will, tomorrow...
    - dchichkov 14y ago

ajb 14y ago

It's ironic that this article is on google docs, which means I have to declare my identity by logging in to google in order to read it.

vacri 14y ago
I was able to read it just fine in a browser (IE) in which I've never logged into anything and only use for testing statements like this.
- ajb 14y ago
  Most people would not be able to do that.

SparrowOS 14y ago

God always wins. God says... forth as the lightning: and the LORD God shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds of the south. 9:15 The LORD of hosts shall defend them; and they shall devour, and subdue with sling stones; and they shall drink, and make a noise as through wine; and they shall be filled like bowls, and as the corners of the altar. 9:16 And the LORD their God shall save them in that day as the flock of his people: for they shall be as the stones of a crown, lifted up as an ensign upon his land. 9:17 For how great is his goodness, and how great is his beauty! corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine the maids. 10:1 Ask ye of the LORD rain in the time of the latter rain; so the LORD shall make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field. 10:2 For the idols have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and have told false dreams; they comfort in vain: therefore they went their way as a flock, they were troubled, because there was no shepherd.

cafebabe 14y ago

In my eyes, the most important argument for protecting your data in any case is that you lose the control on how the data is interpreted by anyone. Privacy just limits the possible (legal) perspectives anyone can have on you. Any data you lose can be used as facts, even if they are out of context, incomplete or perceived or stored in a way that distorts the data. Any data collected leads to reversal of evidence. And it is much harder to fight that, because you have to attack the technical aspects on how the data is collected and/or what is wrong with the data (by giving up more information).

diminoten 14y ago

Privacy, or a lack of it, requires an additional failure (corruption, or ignorance) to become a problem. So it's not privacy, it's ignorance and corruption we should fight for/against.

dredmorbius 14y ago
And yet, perfection in knowledge or execution of duties are impossible, so corruption and ignorance are givens.
- diminoten 14y ago
  Corruption isn't.

onoj 14y ago

A simple concern on this topic: When my day to day life is public online: a)strangers know when I am on vacation and my house is empty b) given the standard misunderstandings amongst people - what they can check about what I am doing via online tools and it differs from what they expect - and they never have to let me know they know (a seed for massive misunderstandings) Both a and b open my life to problems out of my control. Irrelevant of the life I am living. Thus the need for privacy.

thirdtruck 14y ago

I haven't quite figured out how the hyperbolic "I've got nothing to hide" gets past the issue of account passwords. Even if we assume a new "real name only" global system of online identities, that would still require that false testimony or simple errors never get attached to such identities.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

thirdtruck 14y ago

Did you know that you can get in trouble for lending a CD in the UK, which lacks the fair use laws found in the US? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4960226 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4960226

teeja 14y ago

I see no reason to come up with examples apart from the US Gov's response to the massive Wikileaks cable publication. Ignore for a moment that some of the 'secrets' were about illegalities, and recognize that the US Gov has things it NEEDS to hide. We all do, and anyone who says "if you have nothing..." is clearly naive about life. Back when the first teletype BBS's appeared, I pimped for having no passwords and a wide-open system. My plea was met with complete silence, and subsequently life schooled me in the whys and wherefores and wisdom of that silence. The first thing to know is: not everybody is your friend.