[throwaway_law]

>I've spoken with people who have said they are ok with it, when I start asking questions or sharing details on how this has been abused I tend to find they have not thought it through

In the future just ask them to unlock their phone and hand it to you so you can look at their email, text and browser history. Watch them hesitate and refuse.

[Springtime]

This form of argument was covered in Daniel J. Solove's ''I've got nothing to hide'' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy (available to read online), which goes into some detail about how such analogies are rather easily countered since they're not based on actual examples (privacy 'dead bodies' so to speak) that demonstrate abuse/negative impacts.

In this case the analogy being made is that by accepting certain forms of say, government agency snooping, they should therefore be fine with you seeing their data at a whim. However people often see themselves as an irrelevant target to the government and/or that given the vast number of data being collected they would be a blip and less likely to be personally spied upon, so they reason themselves out of being concerned (or having any concern for others that may be impacted).

[dredmorbius]

Solove, "I've got nothing to hide": https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565

[Mirioron]

Even if they reason themselves out of this concern, if that data ever leaks then it will pretty much be like handing over your phone. It'll likely even come with years worth of data.

[justinclift]

Imagine, one of their future kids becomes famous/president/etc.

That parent's history will be leveraged if at all possible, whether they like it or not.

[bilbo0s]

I do this.

But more and more often, people are responding:

"You're not the government."

So it doesn't work as well as people think it does.

[jagged-chisel]

But I am. Your neighbors work for The Government. Your community members make up The Government. It's government by us, made of us, and for us. It's us. There are humans working in government with access to the data. And any new government employee or elected or appointed person from your community will have access to the data...

We have to remind people that The Government isn't some distant "other" - it's made of people you know.

[wlesieutre]

Right, and by requiring a warrant to dig though my shit, at least there's one person with legal training who's ostensibly concerned about my constitutionally protected rights involved in the process.

Just like the priesthood apparently attracts pedophiles because of the opportunities it offers, law enforcement is made of people, and some of those people will have gotten in to it opportunities it provides.

Having access to creep on people with surveillance systems is going to attract the type of person who wants to creep on people with surveillance systems unless those systems are rigidly designed to prevent misuse.

[throwaway_law]

>Right, and by requiring a warrant to dig though my shit, at least there's one person with legal training who's ostensibly concerned about my constitutionally protected rights involved in the process.

That warrant isn't required to dig through your data...the warrant is only required to keep your data from being suppressed as evidence in court.

[mysterydip]

You could be, though, just as easily as anyone else. Government is made up of ordinary people.

[state_less]

And my response would be, "My party voted in the government, so yeah, we voted for the right to look through your phone. Now hand it over or do you want to be a law breaking criminal too?"

[_jal]

And you just lost the argument. There are multiple failures here:

- To many folks, this sounds conspiracy-theory-ish, and they will just yeah-uhuh until you go away.

- Your actual point (that we may have certain comforting legal protections now does not mean that future governments will respect the same restrictions) will leave a lot of folks cold; whatever hysterics they may get up to when debating politics, most folks do not fear imminent totalitarianism in the US.

- To many folks, there is a huge difference between handing their private correspondence/pictures/finances/whatever to you or their cousin and having it available to "the authorities", whom they presume have legal restrictions, training, protocols, oversight, and the overall motive of protecting the country.

That last one is important: to most people, that's a very good thing in and of itself, and also a reason why they believe the Deep State(tm) won't harm them: they don't want to blow things up, so logically there's no reason to scrutinize at them. This is the root of the "nothing to hide" argument. It also happens to be somewhat true: the TLAs do get up to a lot they shouldn't, and sometimes are outright evil. But they do, in fact, work to protect the republic and don't mess with the vast bulk of regular people.

Remember that winning a debate and changing minds are not the same thing.

[state_less]

I seem to have had some success changing minds when I talk to folks about how maybe you're okay with today's government knowing everything about you, but tomorrow's government might be different, nevertheless your data is still around.

I haven't actually tried the approach of role-playing a totalitarian lackey in real life. I get the sense that it could come off as too combative or seem too unrealistic and drive folks away from whatever point I was trying to get across.

I get the complacency. I also largely trust the government employees and agencies given we still have a functioning democracy and mostly intact civil rights. Nevertheless, I see too much erosion of it, so I'm happy whenever we can get together and agree on repairing it.

[bilbo0s]

And they'd still say, "You're not the government."

And they'd be right. If you were part of the government, you wouldn't need to ask to see the data on her Facebook or whatever. You'd probably already have some secret access.

I mean they're right. "You're not the government, and if you were you wouldn't need to ask."

Point is, they trust the government implicitly. (And, for most voters, completely, in matters of security.)

[state_less]

And I'd say, "My party cares enough about safety that we voted that any card carrying party member can do a citizen search if they sense anything suspicious about another citizen. So hand over the phone"

Hopefully we can install a sense of where things can lead to.

Most folks aren't familiar with such strong tactics, but hopefully they are starting to become more so with party sanctioned violence (e.g. punch that opposing guy in the face).

[bilbo0s]

There's the trap they'd get you into though. With mass and ubiquitous surveillance, they don't even need citizen searches anymore. So the person you are talking to would likely report you for impersonating. An agent who was really acting on behalf of the government doesn't need to execute a citizen search of that data.

What I'm trying to point out is that your line of questioning would not impact her view of the government at all, it would only raise her suspicions about you. To the extent that, at some point, she would call the government to report you. Because the government also conditioned her with the whole mantra:

"If you see something, say something."

Trust in the government, particularly on matters of security, is not so easily undermined.

[state_less]

She would probably agree that the government is made up of officials that we elect though right?

So what if the people in the majority party want to usurp power from the minority citizens. Even if only for the reason that they want to keep a 'dangerous party' from taking power. Practicalities about search techniques don't matter in such circumstances. Just imagine a party that is ready to punch the minority party members in the face. Such a party wouldn't think twice about a party member taking the liberty to search suspicious non-party members...

In such cases, it'd be nice if no matter who's in power, there are some laws that must be followed. That's pretty much what the bill of rights is about and it includes protection against unreasonable search. The 4th's a good one because it limits a majorities ability to overpower a minority.