[simfoo]

Thanks for you comment.

I agree that the NSA is not _my_ enemy and I am probably not being targeted. However, as more people start thinking like that, those that _are_ targeted (journalists, lawyers, activists etc.) will have less options to hide among users of more privacy-aware service providers.

In a way, by using these providers you shield those who need their services the most

[infogulch]

This strikes me as a kind of herd-immunity argument but for privacy.

[vezycash]

People won't speak the truth or do the right thing if the environment makes it hard, or risky to do so.

>I am probably not being targeted. However, as more people start thinking like that, those that _are_ targeted (journalists, lawyers, activists etc.) will have less options to hide among users of more privacy-aware service providers.

If only child porn / drug peddlers, journalists, lawyers... use tor and other privacy tools at minimum, 3 things WILL happen.

1. Tor, fastmail, ipfs, pgp, full disk encryption... WILL become illegal

2. Anyone using encryption / privacy tools will be raided. Arrest first, find crime later

3. Authorities imprisoning lawyers, journalists... who reveal wrong doings will be too easy. "He used privacy tools" would be enough to pacify the public after-all, "Only criminals have something to hide."

Consequently:

We'll lose the right to keep pins/passwords. Because refusal - privacy = admission of guilt.

I'm a teacher and I know how difficult it is for a kid to speak the truth when the entire class is lying. Adults are not much different.

If people have to choose between their freedom, means of livelihood and doing the right thing, telling the truth or exposing wrong things by the government most wont.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" -Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr.