| It is complex. Personally I am not so afraid of the NSA; I know the people there have some ethics and internal controls. Do I trust them completely? No. But they are one of many threats. France, Iran, Israel, Russia, and the U.K. are just a few of countries other than the U.S. that run assassination, spycraft, 'terrorism' and other sneaky pete operations worldwide. They are threats, and so are many criminal organizations, individuals, etc. The chief danger of the NSA is that they could be hiding a set of master keys for a national encryption standard which could be stolen by a person who, like Edward Snowden, breaches internal controls and then who knows what happens... On top of all those spooks (maybe 30% psychopaths) you have the people who want to steal everything that isn't tied down (maybe 60% psychopaths), and the people who face insane pressures to put up numbers for investors every quarter (90% psychopaths). There is the real and imagined threats of J. Edgar Hoover style dossiers, but also privacy as a "right to be left alone" which could mean that no you don't want to get certain solicitors showing up at your door or to be followed around by shoes everywhere you go. (Just knowing you are being watched is intimidating, I am going through that right now with a Siamese cat that thinks it is better than other cats and will chase them away by staring at them.) Then there is medical privacy, genetic privacy and a bunch of issues that revolve around that. For instance you have these people who get a $100 DNA test and find out that they are one of 200 people who have the same sperm donor father. And of course there is a trade-off between public and private interests. The "right to be forgotten" is controversial because it is frequently invoked by embezzlers, con artists and other white-collar criminals who many of us fear will offend again if they get the opportunity. The NSA can say that cryptoanalytic warfare has helped us sink Nazi subs, find Che Guevara, etc. Credit Bureaus enable you to do business with people you don't know over the phone and not be deathly afraid of getting stiffed. So it is a lot to think about. |
Guns have helped the allies defeat the Nazis. Bombing civilian targets to break morale did the same. I'm sure torture was also used here and there to get Hans to tell them where the gestapo hides their sauerkraut.
My point is, bad stuff can be used for good. That doesn't make it right, and even less does it mean we should allow others to use that same bad stuff with bad intentions.