Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by cantagi 3483 days ago
Good point. Whenever I post about the snoopers charter, I even have friends jumping in arguing that it's a good idea and that it's necessary in order to protect us from terrorists and pedophiles. As hypocritical and intellectually lazy as it sounds, I delete their comments.
2 comments

If your friends are reasonably bright/open to discussion, but are making the "I have nothing to hide, so why should I worry" argument, and their genuine fear is terrorists blowing up their kids - I've had a little success with the "You might not have anything to hide, but others may." Then remind them that some people may be hiding things for good reason (fear of ostracisation/violence/death) as a result of social or religious reasons, and that if a list like this become public it could seriously affect _other people's_ lives, has sometimes made people take note. Obviously you have to choose your argument carefully.
In The Netherlands nobody had anything to hide, like the Jews around WW2. It was all neatly recorded who was a Jew and made things a whole lot easier for the Germans once they got their hands on the records after they invaded.

People might not have anything to hide now, but things can change... fast.

Yeah. My point exactly.
Even if you believe it's a necessary evil in principle, the implementation is bad enough to want to be against this particular law. The list of agencies who could gain access is laughable and there's nothing that fills me with confidence about ISPs storing people's browsing history with proper security. Three and TalkTalk have both had massive data breaches recently, and I have precisely zero confidence that there won't be a huge data breach/leak in the next few years.
Hopefully the knee-jerk reaction to the inevitable massive leak will put this law where it belongs.