14 ms·

How to tell your mother and bosses why they should protest surveillance

121 points by casca 13y ago

phaer 13y ago
* It undermines the freedom of the press because journalists need to protect their sources. * It undermines the rule of law because the government should not know what you discuss with your lawyer. * It sabotages the health system because you should be able to talk to your doctor in privacy.
- dingaling 13y ago
  I think those examples are begging the question. Many people would say they don't care if a Government agency knows any of that info. Why should they care? Personally I'm not worried if GCHQ know that I went to the doctor about a rash. I find a more convincing argument is that the data can be abused for purposes beyond that for which it was gathered; for example, the disclosures about the DEA and 'parallel construction' shocked many people with whom I work. People respond more to the risk that their misdeeds will be discovered ( be it simple cash-in-hand tax evasion or more nefarious activities ).
  - rb2e 13y ago
    >Personally I'm not worried if GCHQ know that I went to the doctor about a rash. Except it can leave you vulnerable to blackmail. Say your rash is a symptom of a STD which was caused by a drunken one night stand with a x/y person you met at a bar. "Now you wouldn't your partner to find out would you?" says the guy in guy in the suit... Other ways health records can be abused if your partner or child needs a transplant and they are way down the waiting list...
    - ijk 13y ago
      More ways your health records can be abused: * 70% of Americans are currently using some form of prescription drug. Would you be comfortable if this information was given to, say, the next employer you interview with? * Many health issues can be embarrassing for people, even relatively benign ones. This isn't always obvious until you've experienced it. * Mental health issues often carry a social stigma. Yet 11% of the American population currently take antidepressants. * Health records, by necessity, include vast amounts of personal information that isn't directly medical. Addresses. Phone numbers. Social security numbers.
      - Ellipsis753 13y ago
        Are you sure those statistics are right? Do you have a source for them? They just sound quite surprising to me (although I'm from the UK rather than the USA).
        ijk 13y ago
        "Eleven percent of Americans aged 12 years and over take antidepressant medication." from CDC/NCHS Data Brief: "Antidepressant Use in Persons Aged 12 and Over: United States, 2005–2008": http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db76.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db76.htm "Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug, and more than half take two, Mayo Clinic and Olmsted Medical Center researchers say." from Mayo Clinic, "Nearly 7 in 10 Americans Take Prescription Drugs, Mayo Clinic, Olmsted Medical Center Find": http://www.mayoclinic.org/news2013-rst/7543.html http://www.mayoclinic.org/news2013-rst/7543.html
        Ellipsis753 13y ago
        Thank you. It's great to have sources and they seem very good. I would never have guessed that the number of people taking antidepressant drugs would be so high.
  - phaer 13y ago
    I think the first 2 examples do not necessarily affect your personal privacy but the knowledge that there are some checks and balances left. You are right that data leaks/abuse might be the biggest risk concerning the 3rd example. But who would you know if the data is abused or not if journalists can't convince their potential sources that their communication is private? And if you - on some way - get the knowledge that your data is abused, what can you do? Sue the government? That's a lot more difficult if you can assume that the other side has potentially access to your whole strategy and to every mistake you ever did in your whole life (dirty campaigning/blackmailing).
  - merkitt 13y ago
    The real issue is that it really doesn't matter that government knows your personal data unless you've something to hide. The problem is that government does not care about one person. The data becomes a threat only in large scale, when it can be used to predict and control society: https://medium.com/surveillance-state/f16655a5879f https://medium.com/surveillance-state/f16655a5879f
    - WalterBright 13y ago
      > government does not care about one person "You wrote a letter critical of the governor. Let's see what's in your file, ..., hmm, it says here you went to LA when you told your wife you were going to SF. You wouldn't want us to tell her about that, would you?"
mmariani 13y ago
Too much text. If anyone want to have at least some slim success conveying these ideas the message has to be impactful and short. That's why "think of the children" and "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" work so well.
- outside1234 13y ago
  I explain it in four words: "We are all guilty of something." And then I explain that a corrupt power can use this nearly perfect intelligence machine can use this to find something that they hold over our heads. From there its a pretty easy explanation to get to a Hitler like figure being in charge.
  - RougeFemme 13y ago
    Except that many people believe they are - and will always be - "guilty" of nothing. (I have nothing to hide. . .). So that argument won't fly with huge numbers of people. It's like the huge number of people who believe the police department/judicial system/system of choice is infallible until they personally know someone who was treated unfairly or see some egregious example of unfairness in the media. And even then, they still often believe that they never would have done XX and never would have found themselves in that situation.
    - narcissus 13y ago
      That's why when I have this discussion, I go for things that are obviously not illegal but something that almost everyone does... Whenever someone tells me they have nothing to hide, I ask them how often they masturbate. It's an awkward enough question that it gets them off guard and then I just keep telling them how it's totally legal, almost everyone does it and it's completely natural. Eventually they will find an excuse that they think is acceptable, but I just end with "so what you're telling me is that you do have something to hide..." I have a couple of other things I pull out of my pocket (like the time I discussed this with my mother) so generally if that one doesn't get them, one of the others will. But then again, I thankfully haven't had to have the discussion too often, so I don't really know how well my scenarios stand up to true scrutiny.
nilved 13y ago
Could somebody post this on pastebin for people who don't like to visit Slate?
- boi_v2 13y ago
  http://pastebin.com/Aw2SG4Qf http://pastebin.com/Aw2SG4Qf I am curious, why not Slate?
  - nilved 13y ago
    They recently published an article suggesting people surrepticiously feed animal products to vegans, so I don't read their site anymore. I realize that not everybody will agree with that, but I'm not comfortable giving a site like that page views and ad impressions. Thanks very much for providing the link!
    - pavel_lishin 13y ago
      Do you mean that the author at Slate seemed to approve of the practice, or just that they talked about it in general? (I assume the former, and I assume that this is the article: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2013/09/chicken_stock_vegetarians_need_to_compromise_and_stop_pretending_it_counts.html http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2013/09/chicken_stoc...)
      - nilved 13y ago
        Your assumptions are correct!
boi_v2 13y ago
I say: Never give truth to the power. To make people understand what I mean I tell them about Martin Luther King and how the FBI concerned him as a threat to the public, he was kept under strict surveillance to collect information that would be used to blackmail him. The FBI collected information about Dr. King's plans and activities through and extensive surveillance program, from wiretapped telephones to hidden microphones in hotels and motel rooms. Then aI ask: What if your kid is the next dissident, can you guarantee she/he won't have to step up and fight some absurdities? What will happen with she/he under the surveillance state we live today? The problem with "normal people", those who have nothing to hide, is mainly one: you are telling the power what is important for you. I know this seems silly if we only think about ourselves (micro view), but it became a real problem when we realise the whole society is doing the same at the same time (macro view), telling the power what is important, where they should invest, make money, find/manipulate our geniuses, blackmail, incarcerate or kill our dissidents is just non-sense.
bjoyx 13y ago
Remember Minority Report? What happens when "big data" applied to the dragnet flags you as dangerous because of a false positive. Let's start by comparing patterns in the data of known terrorists to everyone else and put the closest matches on a no-fly list.
rayiner 13y ago
I think this is important, but abstract arguments aren't really going to fly with grandma. Tell them that atheist Obama is reading her church emails. That'll get them fired up. Or if your grandma voted for Obama, tell her that can you imagine if Dick Cheney were reading your DNC emails? You have to make political issues personal. Personify them. That's why "welfare queen" was such a smashing success. Privacy advocates have to figure out how to put a face on NSA spying.
- itistoday2 13y ago
  What if your grandma is an atheist?
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - unimpressive 13y ago
    You can trust FDR with this, but what happens in twenty years when Nixon gets it? (Or something similarly hyper-political and specific. I'm sure the comments below can come up with something witty and visceral.)
- pekk 13y ago
  "Personify them" seems to mean "lie to Grandma in order to secure additional votes for your cause." The end justifies the means, clearly.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    No need to lie to grandma. Obama clearly holds views antagonistic towards the deeply religious ("clinging to guns and religion.") There's nothing wrong with using that against him.
- codex 13y ago
  In other words, lie to them?
ijk 13y ago
Everyone has information they would rather not be public, but many people don't realize that until it happens. Remember, most people aren't the focus of mass attention; we don't care if the information gets out because we can't imagine other people actually caring about us en masse until it happens. Bruce Schneier has responded to "I have nothing to hide" with "tell me your salary." We all have things that we'd rather not have specific other people know, but privacy is usually thought of as protection against the anonymous crowds, and our social taboos haven't caught up to the new world.
- unimpressive 13y ago
  >Bruce Schneier has responded to "I have nothing to hide" with "tell me your salary." A friend in high school showed me a web page that had the salaries for all the instructors at our school. So many things made sense after that.
raldi 13y ago
A shorter response to "I have nothing to hide" is "Why do living room windows have curtains?" (It's not because of crimes or orgies.) Another good response is, "Then would you mind if I inspect your wallet, nightstand, medicine cabinet, and tax return?"
uptown 13y ago
I believe one of the most compelling arguments for mainstream individuals is to appeal to their sense of fairness. People don't always understand privacy - but they tend to understand fairness. A simple, relatable example would be exploiting insider information to use in the stock market for huge financial gain. Access to confidential business communications gives individuals an unfair advantage to exploit that information for personal gain. Now, there's no proof that this has taken place, but one has to assume that given the scope of what's collected, it easily could - and eventually will, if it hasn't already.
spydum 13y ago
For the longest time, I combatted my conspiracy theorist friends who were sure the government was out to steal our freedoms by saying that such a conspiracy would require collusion by far too any people, and that since the advent of the internet, that kind of thing would be near impossible. The only thing that concerned me was the possibility of controlling communications (under guise of internet censorship). I asserted that if such censorship ever got passed, our brilliant cryptologist and internet freedom fighters would step up with larger efforts such as TOR to defeat such measures, and preserve our communication freedom and privacy. Someone would start a new network, trying to resolve some of those vulnerabilities that governments and criminals had found exploitable in the past. I am no longer comfortable with that answer. It seems this has all transpired, and we have been left unprepared. Perhaps the internet is too big to fail, and people will lay down and accept the abuse we suffer, because it is too difficult to find another way? More upsetting is, perhaps those friends and relatives weren't so crazy after all?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
Evolved 13y ago
The nothing to hide idea is interesting because it works both ways. If I have nothing to hide then I shouldn't worry about the NSA, according to them. On the other hand, if I have nothing to hide then they should have no reason to surveil me and shouldn't do so.
dllthomas 13y ago
A playful response to "I have nothing to hide" is "... are you really that boring?"
summerdown2 13y ago
If you want to explain why surveillance is creepy, show your mother or boss this video and ask how they'd feel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz8PdALdQDI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz8PdALdQDI To give some background, it's a man who simply walks up to people and starts taking video. It's amazing how many people get annoyed with it. I think this runs close to performance art, and is the best demonstration possible, because it's so easy to empathise with those under scrutiny.
corysama 13y ago
Wish I had a quick link to the reddit post I read from a guy who lived in an active police state. He explained what it's like to be contacted by the government asking for a "favor". And, "btw, we noticed some questionable items in your uncle's file." It's not just about you. It's about everyone you've ever cared about being used against you. Now imagine anyone considering doing anything the govt might not appreciate in that environment...
yetanotherphd 13y ago
How about give the reasons why you believe something, rather than invent reasons after the fact that are tailored to other people's values? In fact, despite working in tech I don't think my values are very different to my Mother's or my Bosses (well actually my boss is an engineer too...). I don't agree with the idea of first finding the truth, and then formulating arguments to convince others. Exactly the same arguments that cause you to believe X are what you should be conveying to others. boi_v2 has a very good summary in this page of the reasons why I oppose mass surveillance.
dllthomas 13y ago
Something occurred to me that might help drive intuition: Everyone gets nervous when there's a cop behind them on the highway.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

121 points by casca 13y ago

phaer 13y ago

* It undermines the freedom of the press because journalists need to protect their sources. * It undermines the rule of law because the government should not know what you discuss with your lawyer. * It sabotages the health system because you should be able to talk to your doctor in privacy.

dingaling 13y ago
I think those examples are begging the question. Many people would say they don't care if a Government agency knows any of that info. Why should they care? Personally I'm not worried if GCHQ know that I went to the doctor about a rash. I find a more convincing argument is that the data can be abused for purposes beyond that for which it was gathered; for example, the disclosures about the DEA and 'parallel construction' shocked many people with whom I work. People respond more to the risk that their misdeeds will be discovered ( be it simple cash-in-hand tax evasion or more nefarious activities ).
- rb2e 13y ago
  >Personally I'm not worried if GCHQ know that I went to the doctor about a rash. Except it can leave you vulnerable to blackmail. Say your rash is a symptom of a STD which was caused by a drunken one night stand with a x/y person you met at a bar. "Now you wouldn't your partner to find out would you?" says the guy in guy in the suit... Other ways health records can be abused if your partner or child needs a transplant and they are way down the waiting list...
  - ijk 13y ago
    More ways your health records can be abused: * 70% of Americans are currently using some form of prescription drug. Would you be comfortable if this information was given to, say, the next employer you interview with? * Many health issues can be embarrassing for people, even relatively benign ones. This isn't always obvious until you've experienced it. * Mental health issues often carry a social stigma. Yet 11% of the American population currently take antidepressants. * Health records, by necessity, include vast amounts of personal information that isn't directly medical. Addresses. Phone numbers. Social security numbers.
    - Ellipsis753 13y ago
      Are you sure those statistics are right? Do you have a source for them? They just sound quite surprising to me (although I'm from the UK rather than the USA).
      - ijk 13y ago
        "Eleven percent of Americans aged 12 years and over take antidepressant medication." from CDC/NCHS Data Brief: "Antidepressant Use in Persons Aged 12 and Over: United States, 2005–2008": http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db76.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db76.htm "Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug, and more than half take two, Mayo Clinic and Olmsted Medical Center researchers say." from Mayo Clinic, "Nearly 7 in 10 Americans Take Prescription Drugs, Mayo Clinic, Olmsted Medical Center Find": http://www.mayoclinic.org/news2013-rst/7543.html http://www.mayoclinic.org/news2013-rst/7543.html
        Ellipsis753 13y ago
        Thank you. It's great to have sources and they seem very good. I would never have guessed that the number of people taking antidepressant drugs would be so high.
- phaer 13y ago
  I think the first 2 examples do not necessarily affect your personal privacy but the knowledge that there are some checks and balances left. You are right that data leaks/abuse might be the biggest risk concerning the 3rd example. But who would you know if the data is abused or not if journalists can't convince their potential sources that their communication is private? And if you - on some way - get the knowledge that your data is abused, what can you do? Sue the government? That's a lot more difficult if you can assume that the other side has potentially access to your whole strategy and to every mistake you ever did in your whole life (dirty campaigning/blackmailing).
- merkitt 13y ago
  The real issue is that it really doesn't matter that government knows your personal data unless you've something to hide. The problem is that government does not care about one person. The data becomes a threat only in large scale, when it can be used to predict and control society: https://medium.com/surveillance-state/f16655a5879f https://medium.com/surveillance-state/f16655a5879f
  - WalterBright 13y ago
    > government does not care about one person "You wrote a letter critical of the governor. Let's see what's in your file, ..., hmm, it says here you went to LA when you told your wife you were going to SF. You wouldn't want us to tell her about that, would you?"

mmariani 13y ago

Too much text. If anyone want to have at least some slim success conveying these ideas the message has to be impactful and short. That's why "think of the children" and "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" work so well.

outside1234 13y ago
I explain it in four words: "We are all guilty of something." And then I explain that a corrupt power can use this nearly perfect intelligence machine can use this to find something that they hold over our heads. From there its a pretty easy explanation to get to a Hitler like figure being in charge.
- RougeFemme 13y ago
  Except that many people believe they are - and will always be - "guilty" of nothing. (I have nothing to hide. . .). So that argument won't fly with huge numbers of people. It's like the huge number of people who believe the police department/judicial system/system of choice is infallible until they personally know someone who was treated unfairly or see some egregious example of unfairness in the media. And even then, they still often believe that they never would have done XX and never would have found themselves in that situation.
  - narcissus 13y ago
    That's why when I have this discussion, I go for things that are obviously not illegal but something that almost everyone does... Whenever someone tells me they have nothing to hide, I ask them how often they masturbate. It's an awkward enough question that it gets them off guard and then I just keep telling them how it's totally legal, almost everyone does it and it's completely natural. Eventually they will find an excuse that they think is acceptable, but I just end with "so what you're telling me is that you do have something to hide..." I have a couple of other things I pull out of my pocket (like the time I discussed this with my mother) so generally if that one doesn't get them, one of the others will. But then again, I thankfully haven't had to have the discussion too often, so I don't really know how well my scenarios stand up to true scrutiny.

nilved 13y ago

Could somebody post this on pastebin for people who don't like to visit Slate?

boi_v2 13y ago
http://pastebin.com/Aw2SG4Qf http://pastebin.com/Aw2SG4Qf I am curious, why not Slate?
- nilved 13y ago
  They recently published an article suggesting people surrepticiously feed animal products to vegans, so I don't read their site anymore. I realize that not everybody will agree with that, but I'm not comfortable giving a site like that page views and ad impressions. Thanks very much for providing the link!
  - pavel_lishin 13y ago
    Do you mean that the author at Slate seemed to approve of the practice, or just that they talked about it in general? (I assume the former, and I assume that this is the article: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2013/09/chicken_stock_vegetarians_need_to_compromise_and_stop_pretending_it_counts.html http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2013/09/chicken_stoc...)
    - nilved 13y ago
      Your assumptions are correct!

boi_v2 13y ago

I say: Never give truth to the power. To make people understand what I mean I tell them about Martin Luther King and how the FBI concerned him as a threat to the public, he was kept under strict surveillance to collect information that would be used to blackmail him. The FBI collected information about Dr. King's plans and activities through and extensive surveillance program, from wiretapped telephones to hidden microphones in hotels and motel rooms. Then aI ask: What if your kid is the next dissident, can you guarantee she/he won't have to step up and fight some absurdities? What will happen with she/he under the surveillance state we live today? The problem with "normal people", those who have nothing to hide, is mainly one: you are telling the power what is important for you. I know this seems silly if we only think about ourselves (micro view), but it became a real problem when we realise the whole society is doing the same at the same time (macro view), telling the power what is important, where they should invest, make money, find/manipulate our geniuses, blackmail, incarcerate or kill our dissidents is just non-sense.

bjoyx 13y ago

Remember Minority Report? What happens when "big data" applied to the dragnet flags you as dangerous because of a false positive. Let's start by comparing patterns in the data of known terrorists to everyone else and put the closest matches on a no-fly list.

rayiner 13y ago

I think this is important, but abstract arguments aren't really going to fly with grandma. Tell them that atheist Obama is reading her church emails. That'll get them fired up. Or if your grandma voted for Obama, tell her that can you imagine if Dick Cheney were reading your DNC emails? You have to make political issues personal. Personify them. That's why "welfare queen" was such a smashing success. Privacy advocates have to figure out how to put a face on NSA spying.

itistoday2 13y ago
What if your grandma is an atheist?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- unimpressive 13y ago
  You can trust FDR with this, but what happens in twenty years when Nixon gets it? (Or something similarly hyper-political and specific. I'm sure the comments below can come up with something witty and visceral.)
pekk 13y ago
"Personify them" seems to mean "lie to Grandma in order to secure additional votes for your cause." The end justifies the means, clearly.
- rayiner 13y ago
  No need to lie to grandma. Obama clearly holds views antagonistic towards the deeply religious ("clinging to guns and religion.") There's nothing wrong with using that against him.
codex 13y ago
In other words, lie to them?

ijk 13y ago

Everyone has information they would rather not be public, but many people don't realize that until it happens. Remember, most people aren't the focus of mass attention; we don't care if the information gets out because we can't imagine other people actually caring about us en masse until it happens. Bruce Schneier has responded to "I have nothing to hide" with "tell me your salary." We all have things that we'd rather not have specific other people know, but privacy is usually thought of as protection against the anonymous crowds, and our social taboos haven't caught up to the new world.

unimpressive 13y ago
>Bruce Schneier has responded to "I have nothing to hide" with "tell me your salary." A friend in high school showed me a web page that had the salaries for all the instructors at our school. So many things made sense after that.

raldi 13y ago

A shorter response to "I have nothing to hide" is "Why do living room windows have curtains?" (It's not because of crimes or orgies.) Another good response is, "Then would you mind if I inspect your wallet, nightstand, medicine cabinet, and tax return?"

uptown 13y ago

I believe one of the most compelling arguments for mainstream individuals is to appeal to their sense of fairness. People don't always understand privacy - but they tend to understand fairness. A simple, relatable example would be exploiting insider information to use in the stock market for huge financial gain. Access to confidential business communications gives individuals an unfair advantage to exploit that information for personal gain. Now, there's no proof that this has taken place, but one has to assume that given the scope of what's collected, it easily could - and eventually will, if it hasn't already.

spydum 13y ago

For the longest time, I combatted my conspiracy theorist friends who were sure the government was out to steal our freedoms by saying that such a conspiracy would require collusion by far too any people, and that since the advent of the internet, that kind of thing would be near impossible. The only thing that concerned me was the possibility of controlling communications (under guise of internet censorship). I asserted that if such censorship ever got passed, our brilliant cryptologist and internet freedom fighters would step up with larger efforts such as TOR to defeat such measures, and preserve our communication freedom and privacy. Someone would start a new network, trying to resolve some of those vulnerabilities that governments and criminals had found exploitable in the past. I am no longer comfortable with that answer. It seems this has all transpired, and we have been left unprepared. Perhaps the internet is too big to fail, and people will lay down and accept the abuse we suffer, because it is too difficult to find another way? More upsetting is, perhaps those friends and relatives weren't so crazy after all?

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

Evolved 13y ago

The nothing to hide idea is interesting because it works both ways. If I have nothing to hide then I shouldn't worry about the NSA, according to them. On the other hand, if I have nothing to hide then they should have no reason to surveil me and shouldn't do so.

dllthomas 13y ago

A playful response to "I have nothing to hide" is "... are you really that boring?"

summerdown2 13y ago

If you want to explain why surveillance is creepy, show your mother or boss this video and ask how they'd feel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz8PdALdQDI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz8PdALdQDI To give some background, it's a man who simply walks up to people and starts taking video. It's amazing how many people get annoyed with it. I think this runs close to performance art, and is the best demonstration possible, because it's so easy to empathise with those under scrutiny.

corysama 13y ago

Wish I had a quick link to the reddit post I read from a guy who lived in an active police state. He explained what it's like to be contacted by the government asking for a "favor". And, "btw, we noticed some questionable items in your uncle's file." It's not just about you. It's about everyone you've ever cared about being used against you. Now imagine anyone considering doing anything the govt might not appreciate in that environment...

yetanotherphd 13y ago

How about give the reasons why you believe something, rather than invent reasons after the fact that are tailored to other people's values? In fact, despite working in tech I don't think my values are very different to my Mother's or my Bosses (well actually my boss is an engineer too...). I don't agree with the idea of first finding the truth, and then formulating arguments to convince others. Exactly the same arguments that cause you to believe X are what you should be conveying to others. boi_v2 has a very good summary in this page of the reasons why I oppose mass surveillance.

dllthomas 13y ago

Something occurred to me that might help drive intuition: Everyone gets nervous when there's a cop behind them on the highway.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]