[pwython]

I'll admit I'm someone who has always said "I have nothing to hide." Do I want someone physically recording me outside my window while changing clothes? No. But the majority of the time, we're just talking about targeted advertisements (which I actually prefer over random crap). Or a system that listens to keywords on phone calls that may identify and deter a terrorist threat. I don't see how this relates to "freedoms of expression." Before the downvotes, please give me an example of where I should be scared. I'm open to learning.

[advael]

During the cold war and the GWOT, people were profiled based on their race, religion, suspected opinions, or association with people suspected of {commun,terror}ism. A ton of these correlations were spurious, sometimes corruptly motivated, and yet the justification of fear caused people to be blackballed in their careers, targeted by law enforcement entrapment, or even just spirited away on thin pretexts. This is in the USA, not East Germany or North Korea. Now, we have much more sophisticated data collection and analysis, and false positives are still very frequent

Also, more mundanely, among the data that's collected by various unaccountable agencies, including nonconsensually, as in the case of things like Equifax, can be used to impersonate you and frame you for crimes, or just steal/use your money. This happens to millions of random people every year and is a direct consequence of a loss of privacy.

A loss of privacy has systemic consequences that change society for the worse. But even if you don't care about anyone but yourself, privacy erosion creates an ever-increasing chance of your life being ruined by overzealous governments making a mistake, or criminals targeting no one in particular but randomly getting you by happenstance

[gregmac]

Would you be okay with people reading and questioning your search history, and any activity or messages ever posted on any site? How about your family members, or doctor, or insurer? How about during a job/school/TV interview?

Are you happy to share your net worth, bank and credit account balance and activity with advertisers?

Are you ok with some AI determining (based on its opaque reasoning) that you are a potential terrorist threat, and should be imprisoned?

Even if you are okay with all the above, do you recognize that not all of society would agree and that some people could even be put into grave danger due to eg: political, religious, sexual etc views? In an extreme case, if "most" people are open and "have nothing to hide", it means that everyone who isn't open must "have something to hide" and should be persecuted. Normalizing this openness actually inches us toward this extreme.

Also you should recognize that your answer based on today's government and political parties may not resemble the parties that hold power in the future. Does an extreme group -- who is the farthest from your own views and in fact violently disagrees with your lifestyle choices -- taking power in the future not worry you at all?

[buildbuildbuild]

Will you ever have regrets about your words and activities?

Will your logged activities of today be acceptable to every regime in your nation’s future?

[rolph]

framing it as targeted advertising is a major part of the problem.