[onethought]

I agree with you. I'm not sure I see the direct link between privacy and freedom.

I can be free to do what ever I like, with a complete lack of privacy. Inversely I can lose all my freedom but have relative privacy (i.e solitary confinement). It seems more, repercussion curtails freedom, not privacy. (Perhaps a pointless distinction).

[rocqua]

No privacy means you need to consider what you do in light of who might judge you for it. That very strongly stifles dissent, just because people self-censor out of fear.

Imagine the principal was a bit of a bully, and students knew he could sometimes read their chat messages. They would probably be a lot less likely to talk with each other, or even with their parents, about the bad behavior of the principal. To my mind, this would make the students less free.

[onethought]

Yes, It was probably a silly distinction. But I think trust is what leads to freedom, and privacy is used to reduce the need for trust. But there are other ways to build strong trust (or trust-less) networks.

[ClumsyPilot]

"I'm not sure I see the direct link between privacy and freedom."

Have you seen "never talk to the police" video, explaining that not even congress know how many different crimes/laws are on the books?

Explaining how easy it is to charge a random person with a crime and get a conviction based on just ill reflection of their character?

Can you draw the logical connection between lack of privacy and how easy it makes it to charge random people arbitrarily? How this could be used for political gain, profit or to supress dissent?

[onethought]

But you are merging issues. The US having complicated sets of laws isn't really an argument for/against privacy... it's an argument for reform.

I can definitely see how a lack of privacy can be used against you. But I'm just saying it's correlative or causative. i.e you can be fairly transparent with a group, and still be relatively free with that group. The privacy isn't what leads to that freedom, it is trust.

At the government level, that is possibly non-existent. But I think it's important to remember that it's trust (or not needing trust) that is the driver of freedom, not other factors.

[ClumsyPilot]

In principle your arguments are reasonable, but i don't think they are achievable.

Trust is cool, but it's a system designed for friends and family. Can you trust 300 million people with you internet banking password? It's statistically inevitable that some or them are dumb, evil, crazy, or all of the above.

"isn't really an argument for/against privacy... it's an argument for reform."

I don't think its possible to reduce laws to such an extent, lawyers can't know all the laws in the same way developers can't know all the code, and you can't fit all the code of a modern computer into something manageable. Every country I know of is in a similar situation.

Basically thats why we have warrants for search, right to silence and make dragnets illegal.

Also world without privacy is a world where anyone can impersonate you and commit fraud, and anyone can sue you, and even if they loose, financially ruin you.

[onethought]

I agree on all fronts. I don't think we should aim for zero privacy... and you are right it could be a dystopia existence.

But there is a balance where if we view trust as the key, and privacy as the ability to control trust. Then we can come up with solutions that may compromise privacy to some degree but maintain trust. (I don't know what they are, I'm speaking in the rather useless abstract).

More we might miss some good solutions if we are blindly protecting privacy (which is the natural knee jerk I end up with)