[capnrefsmmat]

Responses like these just legitimize the idea that privacy is about hiding things. It isn't. Privacy is a way of restricting the government's power over you.

Giving the government the power to read your email, tap your phone, and record your porn usage isn't bad simply because it's embarrassing. After all, the data will likely only be seen by a computer. But it gives the government enormous power to make decisions about you -- decisions about whether you may take a commercial airline flight, get a security clearance, get a job, or even be indefinitely detained -- without your knowledge or consent, and without you knowing how they make the decisions.

Recall the stories of people getting on the no-fly list with no appeals process and no way to find out what information had been used to put them there.

In short, a lack of privacy gives the government the power to be even less transparent in its decision-making, and gives it yet more power over its citizens. It's not a question of discovering your fetishes or being embarrassed, and we shouldn't act as though having nothing to hide really is an excuse.

There's a rather good paper I can recommend on the subject:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565

(I've posted this several times over the past few months, so this is half self-plagiarism)

[diminoten]

For someone like me, someone who has explored this area philosophically (and if you think that sounded pompous, just wait), I find arguments like, "YES YOU DO HAVE SOMETHING TO HIDE" to be a) presumptive and b) not compelling. It just smacks of a lack of understanding about personal responsibility and honesty.

What I'd want, if I didn't yet think privacy was necessary, would be an argument not that privacy is itself an inherent right, but that privacy is a reaction to the flawed nature of humanity. I'd look for why privacy is necessary and not innate, because that makes more sense to me than this abstract idea of a "right to privacy".

Even your argument takes about a dozen leaps to arrive at the conclusion that without privacy, governments can be more private. What you should be talking about is not the government's ability to hide things, but the idea that any government is a flawed entity which are governed by an imperfect set of laws built to represent a cultural morality. Without privacy, you should be saying, the inherent greed and cruelty that exists within every collection of people would run rampant over minorities.

If man were capable of not harassing minorities, then privacy wouldn't be such a big deal. So no, I don't think someone like me would want to hear that privacy is a human right. Someone like me would want to hear that privacy is absolutely necessary to combat the inherent evil that comes with collecting groups of people together. It's not about hiding what you have, it's about protecting minorities from the majority. That's all.

[Ygg2]

I don't think that privacy has anything to do with government. Privacy to me at least, is the ability to filter information I present to other people or groups of people.

[Silhouette]

Responses like these just legitimize the idea that privacy is about hiding things. It isn't.

Of course it is. Absolutely nothing about the principle of privacy and why it matters is specific to keeping secrets from governments.

The examples you gave are just a few things that can happen when someone finds out things about you that you consider private. Many of the same consequences, and plenty of other serious/life-changing ones, could also come about because an employer or union or family member or neighbour or insurance company or lawyer knew something they shouldn't.

[throwmeaway33]

"But it gives the government enormous power to make decisions about you "

What the government can and can't do is limited by the rights granted to them by the constitution and other laws. They're extremely hamstrung.

I think your TSA example perfectly illustrates how the lack of privacy doesn't lead to an abuse of power; it's ironically a testament to how good our system is. To think there are people the government absolutely despises and whose lives they want to be extremely difficult and the best they can do is make them wait longer in line at the airport? That's awesome.

The real fight shouldn't be about privacy but about openness of the government and the expansion of our liberties. The real tragedy is not that these program exist but that they are trying to hide them.

(privacy isn't a liberty, because it doesn't allow you to do things. It disallows others from doing things.)

[lurchpop]

It's essential to liberty though, because the power structure uses information from the privacy invasion to get leverage on you. Stalin's quote, "Show me the man and I'll find you the crime" illustrates this pretty well. Note the word "find." The more data the attacker has, the more they can criminalize.

[throwmeaway33]

None of what you said proves it's "essential".

If you have liberty guaranteed by a legal system, then the government can't attack you.

I mean they can but they'd be violating your rights, and for the sake of this discussion we're assuming they will not do that (if you do assume they ignore laws then legislating privacy protections is meaningless)

Shouldn't the focus be on making sure the government doesn't have means to attack people? ie. That people are guaranteed rights and the power of the state is limited.

PS: Bringing up Stalin kinda makes my point. Privacy is only important in dysfunctional societies where the state is not going to abide by the laws that constrain it. No first world nation in the past 50 years has regressed to a totalitarian state.

[dclowd9901]

One could easily imagine a false correlative impacting your life negatively and unfairly:

If you have security clearance, the government is very interested in the private details of your life. For instancw, the assumption is people who cheat on their significant others are more likely to be a security threat for many reasons. They don't even need to prove it; just find anything from that point to call your character into question.

How would you like to have your entire life become more difficult because of a misinterpretation of correlation/causation?

[homeomorphic]

> Responses like these just legitimize the idea that privacy is about hiding things. It isn't. Privacy is a way of restricting the government's power over you.

I wholeheartedly agree with you. But I'd also point out that most people do in fact have something to hide. So not only is it wrong on principle for the government to invade your privacy - massive surveillance could end up becoming a real, practical problem for many people. Both are important.

[kamitoomany]

>In short, a lack of privacy gives the government the power to be even less transparent in its decision-making,

Why does that follow? Can a government not have data about you and be transparent at the same time?