People with nothing to hide

by alfo • 13 years ago

322 252 13 years ago

kefka• 13 years ago

Since you all have nothing to hide, please post the following:

  Name
  Address
  Phone #
  date of birth
  SS #
  credit card numbers+ expr dates+cvv
  Routing and account numbers for relevant bank accounts
  Logins/passwords to commonly used services
  Your security question/answer combos
  Pictures of all your keys on your keychain

Well, unless, you're a terrorist and don't want to volunteer this info.

miguelrochefort18• 13 years ago

You don't seem to understand how this works.

If you ask a nudist to get naked in a non-nudist environment, he's probably going to refuse. The same rules don't apply to every context.

The world post-privacy is going to be totally different from the one we currently live in.

mantas2• 13 years ago

It would be the same as post-gun world. The ones who would retain privacy would rule the world.

tripzilch4• 13 years ago

The world post-privacy is going to be totally different from the one we currently live in.

Yeah check out NK for a sneak-preview. And they seem to be on schedule with the prison work camps as well.

RWeaver• 13 years ago

Don't forget corporate secrets.

What are your profit margins? What is the maximum/minimum you're willing to pay for all of your current negotiations? What is the design/strategy for your latest products? What is your exact security plan + policy? Who are your best employees, and how much should they really be getting paid?

We probably won't share it with your competitors, promise, probably even if you're a foreign company, but regardless you won't know either way

scotty796• 13 years ago

I'd be absolutely delighted if the companies were forced to release such data if they hope to sell anything to anybody.

I think it would led to much healthier and less wasteful freer market.

popee2• 13 years ago

And please send credit card of Obama. But that would be terrorism.

dylangs10304• 13 years ago

This Twitter account is ironic. They're not actually siding with the NSA. Look at the website listed in the bio[1].

http://danielsieradski.com/nothing-to-hide/14572

Zirro• 13 years ago

I'm quite sure OP was addressing the people whose tweets were featured on that account, and not the owner of the account itself.

mayanksinghal• 13 years ago

You are confusing security and privacy. The people in question are not speaking for lower security, they are speaking for lower privacy.

droopyEyelids• 13 years ago

It's almost like a fundamentalist's abortion doctor hitlist. This is inviting everyone who cares about privacy to search through the retweeted's internet persona and expose any incongruity.

miguelrochefort18• 13 years ago

Privacy is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more resources we waste fighting for it, the bigger the real problem (which exploits the lack of privacy) will grow.

The problem is not publicity. It's the government.

AndyKelley• 13 years ago

What? Can you repeat that, but explain it more clearly?

miguelrochefort18• 13 years ago

Privacy has no intrinsic value whatsoever. All it does is slow down those who can use information against people. To win, we must fight the threat (government). Privacy only gives us time, which itself won't solve anything.

VexXtreme• 13 years ago

It's pretty evident that people get the exact kind of government they want and deserve. I feel no sympathy for anyone in this whole fiasco.

miguelrochefort18• 13 years ago

All of this was totally expected. I fail to understand all the drama surrounding it. Just acknowledge reality and kill the monster before it's too late.

ikusalic• 13 years ago

I often share that opinion, at least with regard to politics. But the problem with the privacy is that this is happening on the global stage. I'm not an American, but I do care about this. It's affecting everybody.

If I'd be pessimistic (and I am...) I'd say this is just a step in slow process that will have some drastic consequences for the freedom in the whole world.

dasil003• 13 years ago

Not even for RMS?

I'm sorry but you can't blame the people for overreach of government powers ex post facto. It's not like people are perfectly informed of everything or that they deserve everything they get because they were at one point manipulated by propaganda. The fact is that it's a constant battle against the ambitious and power-hungry people that drive governments towards totalitarianism. To smugly throw up your arms and say it's the people's fault is to give a free pass the actual evildoers—the actual people who are sitting in backrooms selling out our freedom and liberty in order to get more control and leverage for who knows what purposes. Maybe some of them are actually well-intentioned (certainly many of the people they manipulate are), but those people are fools, utter fools who should pick up a history book.

alan_cx3• 13 years ago

Sort of, yes.

But with the US I do have some sympathy. Trouble is, from my British European perspective, I feel that Americans only have two right wing conservative parties to chose from. One of the things that drives me mental is hearing Obama being described by Republicans as "socialist", even "communist", when Obama is politically further right and our Conservative party in the UK. US politics has no "left" what so ever. Obviously that is relative. But from a global perspective I think that holds.

On top of that money is everything in US politics, and the money goes to those two parties. A third party, more to the left, has zero chance. Then of course there is also the loud hysterical fear mongering right wing media. So, who can Americans vote for for real fundamental change? How could a new message even make it through to Americans? Obama was supposed to be that change, but it turns out he is merely a more intelligent looking President than Bush. His policies seem to have ended up as right wing as Bush's. I realise that his situation with the two houses has compromised him, but I don't recall all this spying and other things like killer robot drone murder being a big issue that he has to bend to. He chose to allow all that.

So, from my POV, its not clear to me what American voters can actually do.

Unless, these billionaire tech business men get their money together and "disrupt" traditional US politics with a new party. Which I believe they could fairly easily do. Especially as these people control the new media. While I'll happily mock the statements from google and facebook, I do get the sense that both really didnt like being roped in to the NSA's little scheme one little bit. Well, now may well be the time for them to get together and create a new political space for Americans, and possibly, the rest of us.

But, as things stand, and normally I would agree with your sentiment, I find it very hard to blame the American people. Here in the UK, and Europe, I believe we have far more choice, and can more reasonably be held to account for our governments. I feel that US government, with big business, has become more disconnected from the people than any other democracy in history.

beshrkayali2• 13 years ago

This is ridicules.

beshrkayali2• 13 years ago

I just read this http://danielsieradski.com/nothing-to-hide/14572 and understood the goal. So +1.

davisr• 13 years ago

I'd love to see digital privacy taught as part of the curriculum in public school computer classes. If every student learned their rights when they learned how to type, these fools with 'nothing to hide' would think a bit deeper about all the information (including the info that may be used against them in a court of law) they've posted online over the past 10-15 years.

miguelrochefort18• 13 years ago

Don't be silly.

gbog• 13 years ago

Yes.

This should be a part of education. Maybe it is already in some parts of Europe that are more sensitive with privay breaches than US (France? Germany?).

Anyway, I live very far from my youngest brother, and have only few occasion to chat with him. Last time I felt the need to check his awareness of the matter (he is on Facebook and has the right age to share pics of drunk friends), and was happy to hear that he was under a pseudo and was using carefully the privacy features.

Akathos• 13 years ago

It's not, our governments would love something like PRISM. The "I don't have anything to hide" argument is going strong over here too.

baddox• 13 years ago

I also have no problem with those people willingly sending anyone any of their personal information. The problem is when people aren't given a choice whether their personal information is kept secret.

denzil_correa2• 13 years ago

Exactly. The freedom of choice is a very important factor in democracy.

miguelrochefort18• 13 years ago

When you walk in the street, do you choose whether I see your or not? Why shouldn't consent be necessary in that case, but should be in others?

EDIT: Who sets the limit between what is implicitly private and public? Let's say I made the decision to add thermal vision to my left eye, and happen to see what you do inside your house. Am I hurting your privacy?

jedbrown• 13 years ago

But the choice needs to be free, not coerced. Programs like Global Entry, TSA Pre, and CLEAR are examples of (minor) coercion, inconveniencing those who do not sign up.

khuey• 13 years ago

Global Entry/PreCheck/Clear are pretty benign. The only information Global Entry requires that the government won't already have from tax records, DMV records, border records, etc for most citizens are fingerprints. I don't see it as much different than a drivers license/passport requiring a picture (for most people that's going to be the only way the government gets a picture of them on file).

asv• 13 years ago

The background they chose is nice.

iMark• 13 years ago

I have plenty to hide. I'm only human.

miguelrochefort18• 13 years ago

You don't have to hide anything. You simply choose to, which is sad.

mantas2• 13 years ago

Why sad?

popee2• 13 years ago

So why is NSA hiding anything from public?

EliRivers5• 13 years ago

What's the URL for the live feed from your bedroom?

jon_black• 13 years ago

What is seldom mentioned is how information is processed and stored. Innocent personal data can be combined to create a false image of someone, which can then be used against them. You might find yourself, for example, on a no-fly because you bought a book about making bombs. The fact that you are working on your latest best-selling novel was ignored.

dylangs10304• 13 years ago

Since this isn't immediately clear to commenters - this is designed to be ironic. I don't know if all the people volunteering tweets know that, but it's clearly described in the website linked on this Twitter account[1].

I highly recommend you go there for further reading, it presents a lot of useful data about the FBI and the United States' breach of privacy and constitutional rights recently and historically.

The author is trying to send a message ironically and rally people against the NSA's abuses and the corollary fallacy of "If you have nothing to hide, why do you care?" which has also been debunked by Bruce Schneier[2].

Just wanted to put that out there.

[1] http://danielsieradski.com/nothing-to-hide/14572

[2] https://www.schneier.com/essay-114.html

tome3• 13 years ago

I don't know if all the people volunteering tweets know that

They're not volunteering tweets are they? Surely the retweeting is without their knowledge or approval.

The author is trying to send a message ironically and rally people against the NSA's abuses

A worthy goal, but I wonder if it might be self-defeating. It portrays this data-gathering as something a huge amount of people simply do not mind.

dylangs10304• 13 years ago

They're writing the tweets, I wasn't speaking to the tweets then being retweeted.

I also wonder that, it seems eerie how many people are "acting" as though the Twitter is not ironic.

alan_cx3• 13 years ago

Sadly another example of why irony does not work well in writing. You need the body language and facial expressions to sell it. My sense of humour tends to include a lot of irony and I have had to learn that lesson and now rarely express it on line.

coldcode• 13 years ago

Assume someone at the NSA has access to the data. Assume they have money problems or drugs or gambling. Assume a criminal or terrorist organization has money to buy access. Assume you're screwed.

ck23• 13 years ago

Here's the thing - in theory the NSA knows about every corrupt cop in the country based on their calls, emails and financial data.

Yet they've done nothing. Interesting situation.

scotty796• 13 years ago

I think the movement towards total surveilence should be accompanied by redefining from scratch of what actions can be persecuted by using evidence from such surveilence.

This might be the only opportunity to shed cruft that accumulated in our laws and to give total surveilence some public legitimacy.

People are mostly afraid of surveilence because laws and morality nowadays are batshit crazy from all the cruft from previous times and you can't be sure if you are doing anything illegal.

ck23• 13 years ago

Think about how the NSA helped stop all the killings and maimings at the boston bombing.

Oh wait, they didn't - from two super stupid criminals not even trying to hide what they were planning.

So WTF good are they doing for all the damage they've done to our society.

NSA has become just like the TSA, completely useless theater that hassles everyone and accomplishes nothing.

Just wait until they can park hundreds of drones over every city and track everyone's movements historically, forever - the logic will be you are in public so no warrant needed or there will be yet another secret warrant for the entire country.

asperous• 13 years ago

Apparently they stopped some other bombing (though it's pretty hard to convict a criminal guilty purely on intent).

I think it just comes down to the trade off of freedom vs. loss of life.

I mean that's what it's really about, isn't it? We are giving up the freedom of privacy for the potential of more security?

Yet, This is not the American Way

At one point we realized that in order to protect the freedoms of our people we had to die. That's why so many fought in the revolutionary war. To protect our rights and freedoms as citizens against the State (England, at the time).

If we just lay down like dogs now and let our government walk over us like dogs, all those lives will have been wasted.

ck23• 13 years ago

The last bombing that was announced that they stopped, it was the FBI spoon-feeding all the ideas and materials to the "would be terrorists" and nagging them to death until they started to put a plan together.

So I'll believe that they stopped something when they produce the details for the press to investigate.

mtgx2• 13 years ago

Or maybe they didn't:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/public-documents-contradict...

Sambdala• 13 years ago

It's more complicated than "freedom vs. loss of life" because any "protections" necessarily have costs and unexpected consequences. So what ends up happening is even more terrifying than a direct freedom vs. lives trade off would be in theory.

For example, if TSA being onerous convinces a significant number of people to drive for their medium distance trips instead of fly, more people will die because driving is more dangerous than flying.

Also, it's not exactly a 1-to-1 comparison, but for every 700,000 hours(ish) you force people to wait or delay their day in some fashion, you're causing an entire lifetime of inconvenience. It's better than taking an infant from its mother and shooting it, but it's still taking an entire lifetime of potential and destroying it through boredom and frustration.

I know I'm leaning pretty heavy on TSA examples here, but we've also seen they can't even reliably stop weapons from coming through security in predictable and repeatable ways. So, "we" decided that a trade off between security and freedom was prudent, we implemented that trade off, and then we found out we only received the downsides and none of the upsides.

madaxe2• 13 years ago

They've been busily locking folks up over here in the UK for the last year or so for life sentences, just for talking about plots - no action whatsoever.

Precrime is already here and nobody is batting a damned eyelid.

rmc2• 13 years ago

Select bias. You don't know what they did stop.

mtgx2• 13 years ago

I'm sure they have plenty of proof ready to share with the public, to prove that the system is worth it, even though it's unconstitutional, but apparently no one cares about that and about American values anymore:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Etm4dHdaApo

D9u2• 13 years ago

"They" knew that the "Ft Hood shooter" had been in contact with extremists, yet we all know what the end result there was.

    13 dead
    30 + wounded

coldtea2• 13 years ago

I don't think so. Any BS success they would advertise to high heavens.

alan_cx3• 13 years ago

Which is the same nasty logic as if you have nothing to hide routine.

venomsnake• 13 years ago

Well ... the day after Osama was killed it was all in the news and all positive. If they stopped something on similar scale they would not have reasons to hide it.

rrrrtttt• 13 years ago

The Financial Times has called this the data intelligence complex, by analogy with the military-industrial complex. It's a government--private sector alliance that's spending $80bn yearly on spying on citizens with questionable returns. Can you imagine "how many jobs would be destroyed" if this were to stop?

tomarr• 13 years ago

We shouldn't forget how much $80 billion actually is.

For that amount, they should be saving in the order of 40,000 people's lives from terrorism a year to justify the spending.

(I've plucked the intervention per life-year saved from here: http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/Courses/UCSBpf/readings/inter...

and assumed each life-save has 50 potential years of their life left)

mehwoot6• 13 years ago

This is silly. It is impossible to know how many other bombings have been stopped because of intelligence gathering attempts. In fact since 9/11 I've been extremely surprised at the low number of terrorist acts which have subsequently occurred, although maybe I was just wrong to assume how frequent / easy they would be to carry out.

There are much better reasons to oppose this than "To me it looks like they didn't stop every attack so it is useless".

vixen99• 13 years ago

Your corrective is well taken. The "Didn't work, did it!" response obscures the real dangers. These enthusiasts for blanket surveillance should be asked to consider "Who watches the watchers?". One answer is: you never know.

corresation2• 13 years ago

We have no idea what they actually did prevent, and a single case where they failed demonstrates little. Further, pointing out the failure in the Boston bombing is a poor counterpoint given that to many it would suggest that increased surveillance is necessary, not less.

I'm not American, so I can't really speak to the domestic angle. I am immensely concerned about the foreign angle, however -- if the US government can secretly demand information from firms like Google or Apple, that is extremely concerning from an espionage perspective (economic or otherwise). Every government of Canada employee involved in the F-35 procurement process (or the Keystone XL pipeline, or any other multinational discussion), for instance, hopefully don't carrying Android or iOS or Windows OS devices (back when Obama carried a Blackberry, a Microsoft rep pointed out how dangerous this was having the president carrying a foreign device. Every other nation on Earth needs to heed those words). Even if communications were end-to-end encrypted, simply knowing where each of the people were and who they communicated with -- without knowing the contents of those communications -- would provide simply enormous data to effectively flank any position.

It is ironic to look back to when Chinese firms like Huawei see great suspicion, when we know that the free and democratic United States may be just as dangerous.

goostavos• 13 years ago

>We have no idea what they actually did prevent

Ugh.. what terrible reasoning. The absence of data is not somehow possible data.

pointing out the failure in the Boston bombing is a poor counterpoint given that to many it would suggest that increased surveillance is necessary, not less.

It's actually a rather good counter point. It shows that the FBI/NSA/big brother already can't process all of the data it has in a meaningful amount of time. How does adding more data to sift through help? Unless there's some benevolent, magical AI that can pick terrorist patterns out of a colossal sea of data, I fail to see how more data is the solution.

nahname• 13 years ago

We have no idea what they actually did prevent, and a single case where they failed demonstrates little.

And that is the problem. Zero accountability to the very populace they are taking liberties away from.

Carlee2• 13 years ago

To me it's a bit like maintenance: You only notice it's there when it doesn't work.

Like someone else said, we have no idea how much crap they actually catch, maybe the boston incidence is just one instance out of many others that were prevented.

Qantourisc2• 13 years ago

Then it's in their own interest to publish a few numbers from time to time.

marvin• 13 years ago

If this is supposed to be ironic, it sounds frighteningly serious. Not sure if everyone posting on this feed knows that it's supposed to be a joke,

nodata• 13 years ago

Obligatory reading:

The Eternal Value of Privacy http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securityma...

Reddit comment from this week: http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1fv4r6/i_belie...

tripzilch4• 13 years ago

Reddit comment from this week: http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1fv4r6/i_belie...

Wow, probably the best story/argument against "I've got nothing to hide" I've read so far. I posted a link to an article with a convenient list of counter arguments yesterday[0], but this one, in the sense of direct, believable danger easily surpasses those (for me, at least).

That story is actually happening. Various parts of it have already happened in all sorts of civilized countries (US, UK, NL, DE ...), infiltration of completely innocent protest and activist groups, blackmail, he didn't mention agent provocateurs but things invariably get real messy really quick when the agency gets pressed for results of these expensive operations and the activists are in fact quite innocent, just exercising their rights to have meetings and organising protests, nothing more. And then everyone and their friends & family gets on a list.

The torturing, maybe not yet. Not in my country as far as I know. But that is actually going on, on large scale, in countries that seem otherwise quite civilized. And it is happening to the people that had "nothing to hide" just as much.

Probably even moreso because they do not realize what the stakes really are until it's too late to hide.

[0] http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127...

notdrunkatall2• 13 years ago

Yes, I wish that the 'nothing to hide' fools would all read this.

noerps3• 13 years ago

Being ironic on twitter is part of the problem.

downandout• 13 years ago

These tweets are just a sliver of the overwhelming evidence that most of the US population is incredibly naive. The issue with that, of course, is that they won't vote out of office the officials responsible for allowing these programs. Every elected official involved in the oversight of these programs, those that announce support for them, and those that do not publicly denounce them, must be voted out in the next election. That won't happen because of people like this. As a democratic society, ambivalence may be the most dangerous enemy we face.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if the NSA offered free, nationwide, unlimited mobile voice/LTE data/SMS with a warning that all of it would be monitored and recorded. My bet is the adoption rate would be above 90%.

notdrunkatall2• 13 years ago

I think the number would be closer to 40-50%, but your point stands.

foobarqux• 13 years ago

Privacy is an ecological issue. Even if you have "nothing to hide" you can't have a democracy if dissenters don't have those protections.

heyitsnick• 13 years ago

The sad irony out of all this is that if you are served with an NSL, you now are legally obligated to have something to hide.

As Nicholas Merrill, writing anonymously in 2007 for the Washington Post [1] puts it:

"Living under the gag order has been stressful and surreal. Under the threat of criminal prosecution, I must hide all aspects of my involvement in the case -- including the mere fact that I received an NSL -- from my colleagues, my family and my friends. When I meet with my attorneys I cannot tell my girlfriend where I am going or where I have been. I hide any papers related to the case in a place where she will not look. When clients and friends ask me whether I am the one challenging the constitutionality of the NSL statute, I have no choice but to look them in the eye and lie."

So its not only that some law-abiding citizens have something to hide; the NSA is legally obligated tens of thousands every year [2] to have do it.

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03... [2] http://epic.org/privacy/nsl/

skore• 13 years ago

When I meet with my attorneys I cannot tell my girlfriend where I am going or where I have been.

This is sure to make short work to any friendship, especially relationships. Disgusting and dehumanizing.

Imagine being legally required, by your government, to seem as though you are having an affair.

hannibal5• 13 years ago

What has happened to citizen disobedience in America?

What would happen if 1000-5000 people who have been served NSL would come out at same day. Many of them working in big companies.

john_flintstone• 13 years ago

Questions for people with nothing to hide:

1. Have you ever had an abortion?

2. Have you ever cheated on your husband / wife?

3. Are you currently looking for a new job?

4. Have you ever being diagnosed with a mental illness?

5. Are you currently on anti-depressants?

6. Were you ever sexually abused as a child?

7. Have you ever fancied someone of the same sex?

8. Have you ever had sex with someone of the same sex?

9. Have you ever criticised your current employer or boss to anyone else?

10. Do you love all of your children equally?

11. Have you ever fantasized about...

12. Are you planning to get pregnant in the next two years?

13. Have you ever lied on a cv/resume?

14. Are you mean to your wife / husband on a regular or semi-regular basis?

15. Do you have trouble acquiring or maintaining an erection?

16. Are you one of those women who’ve never had an orgasm?

17. What prescription drugs are you currently taking?

18. Have you ever cut yourself?

19. Have you ever attempted suicide?

20. Have you contemplated suicide in the past 2 weeks?

21. Would you be happy with your answers to these questions being made public? Or being read by your employer, local 23 year old policeman, or nosey neighbour?

I could go on and on. None of the actions mentioned in these questions are illegal, but for many/most people, the answers would be intensely private.

stfu2• 13 years ago

Apparently those people in the twitter feed are fine with getting registered and living under high transparency.

My suggestion would be a crowd funded campaign to doxx each one of them. Would be happy to donate a few hours of my time tracing their real names.

With some funded capital we could buy and publish for each one a personal background check sort of a personal gift to free them from the burden of anonymity.

mehwoot6• 13 years ago

An internet campaign by privacy advocates to shame those people who expressed an opinion. That's a great idea. You should totally do it. This won't backfire or be hypocritical in any way shape or form.

wslh2• 13 years ago

Apparently those people in the twitter feed are fine with getting registered and living under high transparency.

I suggest the NSA to record them having sex to see how clean they are. Obviously the videos will be encryped so only intelligence agencies can watch them.

tripzilch4• 13 years ago

DOXX THEM IN THE NAME OF PRIVACY!

:-/

congratulations, you just stooped to the very same level of counter-productive-intelligence as those who are orchestrating the transparent monitoring of our society.

anonymfus• 13 years ago

Most frightening thing is that some of these people really don't have anything to hide.

Just out of curiosity I went to the blog of one of the first mentioned twitter users (https://twitter.com/MeaniePants/status/342430468442042369 ) and found photos and stories about toilet training of her child. WTF.

I also think it's histerical that I put a pic of Lily pooping on Facebook and it received the most likes ever. I think even more than her birth photo or Roman's homecoming pics.

wslh2• 13 years ago

Studies say that N % of people who do items X1, X2, ... Xm are very dangerous to the society. Are you saying that you don't believe in statistics?

hzay• 13 years ago

Until a few weeks ago, my answer to all these questions would have been on the safe side (except for 11 which is very open-ended). I think, most people who say "I have nothing to hide, so why should I worry about privacy?" have a list like this one to fall back upon.

The question of whether you have anything to hide is really the same as whether you're willing to put everything that you have ever thought under legal scrutiny. It's not about being on the "correct social and legal side" in all the tame scenarios that one has dreamed up.

tripzilch4• 13 years ago

That twitter bot should mix those questions with the automatic retweets.

(and, just curious, but why does it matter if the local policeman is 23 years old? :) )

scotty796• 13 years ago

Young people tend to be less aware/accepting of morally shady things normal people do as they had less time themselves to make mistakes.

oelmekki• 13 years ago

I think the most embarrassing question you could ask all of them is : could you give me a summary of the last three century of History ?

thomseddon• 13 years ago

One important thing to recognize is that: "You can read my text/call logs" !== "You and the rest of the world can know everything about me"

So someone saying they "have nothing to hide" doesn't really mean they would answer all the above question publicly, but rather there is no electronic record/evidence of anything they know they want to keep private.

And, as another point of discussion, whilst the matters raised in those questions may be deeply personal for many people, frankly I wouldn't be concerned if my answers to those questions were in the public domain.

Gonzih• 13 years ago

Any data can become public at some point.

finnw• 13 years ago

Some of these questions can be guessed at by data mining from your email and social network data.

bad_user2• 13 years ago

One other important thing to recognize: many people have leaked confidential/private info, even without them realizing it.

Example: the SMS messages I send to my wife tend to contain more sensitive info than the Facebook messages I publish for the whole world to see. This is because I trust my wife and when she's the sole recipient of a message, I tend to be more honest and open-minded with her than I am with the rest of the world. Plus, she knows me well enough to interpret my thoughts into context, whereas other people can only interpret my written thoughts out of context. N.B. the recipients of a message do matter for the enclosed content ;-)

And yet another important thing to recognize: even if you know that your communications may be wire-tapped, you still feel safe because why in the world would those in power be interested about your private life?

Example: when I send an SMS message to my wife, I know that my mobile career may record every message I send. It doesn't usually bother me, since I'm not doing or thinking of illegal activities, but then again, this may be a decision that will come back haunting me (and I'll stop here since I'm trying really hard to avoid Godwin's law).

johnchristopher2• 13 years ago

One important thing to recognize is that: "You can read my text/call logs" !== "You and the rest of the world can know everything about me"

No, "having nothing to hide" means exactly that. Especially since we live in an age where everyone can google anyone.

So someone saying they "have nothing to hide" doesn't really mean they would answer all the above question publicly, but rather there is no electronic record/evidence of anything they know they want to keep private.

"Nothing to hide" on the internet or IRL implies everything of one's private and public life, you can't change its meaning back to exclude some kind of private life (defined as what isn't electronically stored) after the facts.

"having nothing to hide" is the fallacious moral stance used by Schmidt when he says "maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place".

Ygg24• 13 years ago

You can simply ask them do you go everywhere naked? If not then they have something to hide. Literally.

icebraining6• 13 years ago

Clothes serve many purposes beyond hiding your body. Protection from dirt and weather conditions, social signaling, etc.

lmirosevic• 13 years ago

Yes. And because you know the questions to ask means you have too. And so since we both have it makes it OK.

matteodepalo3• 13 years ago

I don't have nothing to hide from the government. This doesn't mean everyone I know should know everything about me. I am just a number for people collecting information about me, whereas for YOU or anyone in my social circle, certain kind of information can change my reputation and the way I'm seen by my peers forever. Stop equating "the government is doing statistics about people and keeping that information confidential" with "everyone should know everything about anyone". If you think the problem is that the government could leak that information, anyone that is currently handling your data (e.g. Google) could.

lolcraft• 13 years ago

I don't have nothing to hide from the government.

Imagine some crazy, hard-line politicians get elected and make a law that retroactively throws to jail women who get abortions. Or homosexuals. Or maybe it's a party that decides the 1% is due for some rich-shaming, who knows. Last century it was communists, and maybe the USA will feel nostalgia for that again[1] but, who knows who will paranoia strike tomorrow? This fellow at the NSA could be a very honest person that votes, say Remocratic, and you're a Depublican senator who's had an affair, so naturally this pious person decides to blow some whistles, should this pseudo-crime go unpunished.

Not to mention bullshit non-crimes like smoking pot, drug consumption, or possession of child pornography. They get your pot dealer, now they've got you, and so the government gets to enforce a ridiculous law much more tyrannically.

If you think the problem is that the government could leak that information, anyone that is currently handling your data (e.g. Google) could.

Not everybody is okay with Google doing that either. That's why I, as an European, support stricter, better privacy laws at the European Union level.

[1] Don't laugh, it has happened. Some months ago, many Chinese nationals were fired from the NASA HQ in Virginia, then arrested, at the request of the Virginian senator. Their crime? Being Chinese, and thus suspects of espionage. Imagine what levels of paranoia this new technology could enable, if put in the wrong hands.

icebraining6• 13 years ago

The government was also keeping the existence of PRISM confidential....

natch2• 13 years ago

Nah, I'd go straight for:

Please list the names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, and any private information you may have access to (SSN, credit card number, banking details) of your mother, father, brothers, sisters, children, and any other family members.

Might as well throw in all the info you have for any friends and acquaintances too.

And their private photos, too, because you don't care about hiding things that people have shared with you in confidence, right? You must not, because you said you have nothing to hide.

networked• 13 years ago

Great list!

I tried to think of a persuasive, semi-automated way to use it and came up with this:

First, make a website where you would log in with Facebook or Google (and optionally give your Twitter handle) and then give answers to questions like the ones above. Filled-in answer forms would be stored and then (by default) accessible to the public (through a search form and a "latest" column on the front page). Include a small checkbox at the bottom to keep the filled-in form hidden from the public but available to the government upon request.

Now, when people say they "have nothing to hide" to you on-line do the following:

1. Link them to that website.

2. At this point they will most likely try to qualify their initial statement with a "from the government".

3. Bring to their attention the checkbox at the bottom.

4. "But the owner of the website might sell the data anyway!"

5. You are now at a good starting point for an in-depth conversation about privacy ("How is this different from Facebook?").

Of course, this is rather manipulative and could become obnoxiously overused, but would you rather this tool existed or not? Feel free also to suggest your improvements.

saraid216• 13 years ago

Here's a model you can work off: http://www.trialbytimeline.org.nz/

jmilloy• 13 years ago

For me, this misses the point. Regardless of whether or not I have nothing to hide now, that doesn't mean I won't have anything to hide in the future. We would you give the government a permanent lease on your personal details into the indefinite future? Even if you stay exactly the same, the government can change.

Tosh108• 13 years ago

Talking about the content of what they might know is a distraction of the real problem. If there is too much power and information with one organization (the goverment in this case) bad things happen to individuals that go against these organizations.

This a problem that's not exclusive to police states, it also affect western democracies and corporations. For the US right now the individuals at stake are the ones that go against and or scare the status quo: whisteblowers, hackers, political activists, etc.

If you want a concrete example the post on HN from just a few hours ago is a great one: https://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/05/15-7

alexvr• 13 years ago

I just realized how scary Google is.

darwinGod• 13 years ago

Nice list- I am not sure if an equivalent law exists in any other country- but in India, if you have attempted suicide (and survive),you will be arrested!

stefanix4• 13 years ago

Good start to think about "nothing to hide". In addition there is no way of saying what becomes sensitive in the future and who might have access to the data. When pre-nazi germany collected religious census data it wasn't with the intention to supply the nazis with an efficient database to crack down on jews and other minorities. What can comfortably be public changes tremendously over time and who gets access to the data.

The question to ask yourself is really how much risk is tolerable that some data point will be used in the future to discriminate against you.

The other concern is the conformity this attitude breads. Do you really think everybody should refrain from testing the boundaries and adjust their actions to whatever the mainstream is? This way "nothing to hide" is an easy attitude. What kind of society actively discourages edgy thinkers and innovators and where does this lead to politically and culturally? Certainly not a place I want to be part of.

stefanix4• 13 years ago

Nice, the atlantic just wrote an article along the same line. Even if you fully trust the current administration, why make yourself vulnerable to future ones ...

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/all-the-...

capnrefsmmat• 13 years ago

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)

dclowd9901• 13 years ago

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?

homeomorphic2• 13 years ago

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.

Silhouette• 13 years ago

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.

diminoten• 13 years ago

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.

throwmeaway333• 13 years ago

"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.)

kamitoomany• 13 years ago

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?

Nekorosu• 13 years ago

And don't forget to attach your sex tapes if you have any.

cunac2• 13 years ago

Sure you realize that audience is way smaller then what you imply and you did answer to most of those questions to your doctor/lawyer etc.. Try to compare apples to apples

mrkuchbhi• 13 years ago

A relevant article..has been posted earlier here ... "Why privacy matters even if you have nothing to hide?" ...http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127...

al_biglan• 13 years ago

Along the same lines: 1) Govt asks: Have you ever committed a crime? and waits for your response 2) Then asks: Have you ever jaywalked/gone faster than posted speed/etc? (any other "common" crime)

If you answered "no" to 1) and "yes" to 2) then, congrats! You've committed a felony (perjury) in the US. Even if you've done nothing else wrong, you can go to jail.

Also: Always take the 5th... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc (especially in light of infractions against the 4th)

guiomie• 13 years ago

speeding is a not a crime.

paul9290• 13 years ago

Uh well probably the majority of us would answer yes to many or some of those questions

and you know what it would show that were all the same ... HUMAN!

gmays• 13 years ago

While I don't necessarily condone this, it is an interesting thought. Social motivation (i.e. what people think about us) is one of the most powerful motivations in the world. How would the world change if everyone knew everything? Would we be motivated to be better people?

What if everyone's credit score was public or everyone knew how much time people spent on Facebook, watching TV, or similar activities? Would we become better?

Imagine if political and business leaders were elected on such characteristics, the truth. What if everyone was known for who they really were? Would crime and corruption go down? Would there ever be another war if people understood each other better?

It'd sure make dating easier...do you really want to start a life with this person now that you know what they are? Do you want this person to be the mother/father of your children? The bar would certainly be lower, because nobody is perfect and everyone has secrets.

Would the truth be beautiful once it’s universal? People who lived lives of quiet desperation (more than we think) would find out how many other people are just like them. Would people stop being ashamed of who they are? Would rates of mental illness, suicide, and depression plummet?

Would the world be better? I assure you it'd be more compassionate. People would be less likely to judge people based on unrealistic standards while quietly ignoring their own shortcomings.

I wouldn't be surprised if in the next 20 years we saw an 'Open' organization where people opt-in to share everything about themselves and make everything public. Maybe it'd be cathartic, maybe it wouldn't catch on, but with enough critical mass the social pressure would be interesting to see (i.e. how those running for political office are pressured to release past tax filings).

An interesting thought.

LnxPrgr3• 13 years ago

It's funny—my boss has wished me luck on interviews, and people I barely know know I'm on an anti-depressant. The fact I've made an attempt on my own life is posted publicly on HN.

As far as I know, I'm also absolutely uninteresting to any 3-letter agencies. I'm still not a fan of omnipresent surveillance of my phone's activity… or any other activity, for that matter.

What does it really take to become interesting to these guys, and how might that impact my life? Is political speech critical of, say, the collection of citizens' phone metadata enough to catch their interest? Is unknowingly associating with someone they find interesting enough? Knowingly associating?

In an ideal world, if any of these things subject me to additional scrutiny, once I turned out not to be a legitimate threat, that'd be the end of it. I wouldn't even know anyone had been watching. But does it ever go further, even when it shouldn't?

How are we supposed to know when everything's done in secret?

auctiontheory• 13 years ago

Don't know where in the world you are, but based on the information you've posted in the first sentence, you would never be able to purchase individual health insurance in the US. That means, among other things, no leaving your employer (and employer-provided insurance) to pursue your entrepreneurial dreams, unless you want to go without insurance altogether, or get it through a spouse.

ceautery• 13 years ago

1. no; 2. no; 3. yes; 4. no; 5. no; 6. no; 7. no; 8. no; 9. yes;

10. yes - as far as I know, you either love someone or you don't, I don't think it comes in degrees.;

11. yes; 12. no; 13. no; 14. no;

15. yes, but [array of excuses];

16. no; 17. none;

18. Yes, but not intentionally [kitchen job for 4 years]

19. no; 20. no; 21. No, just indifferent.

Why is the policeman 23 years old? Seems like a strange number to pull out of a hat. Also I'm pretty sure lying on your CV is illegal - that would be some sort of fraud, wouldn't it?

madaxe2• 13 years ago

My uncle tried this argument. I proposed that he post a photo of himself naked on his facebook wall.

Funnily, he demurred.

shurcooL• 13 years ago

Here's the thing. If it's only YOUR answers that can be made public and the entire world is expected to scrutinize them, you will want to keep it private.

But if lots of people's answers are public, you will quickly see that everyone... is just human. The things we consider private and embarrassing are absolutely common and normal. It's absolutely normal to be abnormal. It's normal to be average. It's okay to have weird fantasies, other people have weird fantasies too. Everyone takes a shit.

It's the imbalance of information release that is more upsetting.

billiamram• 13 years ago

According to your quiz, I have nothing to hide, but I'm still a strong privacy advocate. Privacy to me is all about context and understanding the consequences of your actions. If I run naked through Times Square, I shouldn't have any reasonable expectation of physical privacy, but if I whisper to a friend I would. Either way the important factor in both scenarios is that your expectation of privacy aligns with reality.

As for context, specifically with regards to prism, if I dial a wrong number that happens to belong to a terrorist, I may find myself guilty by association, with the burden of proof of innocence in my own hands. Quickly hanging up and dialing a similar number after might not be sufficient defense since that could be a strategy terrorists use to cover their tracks.

ansgri• 13 years ago

It could be an interesting idea for terrorists to terrorize people this way: just distribute their numbers and see Gov't do their work.

marchdown2• 13 years ago

That's far from the only reason to encourage privacy.

I don't really know how to respond to here. I believe that I see your point, but even though I wouldn't mind my answers to that questionnaire being made public, I still feel that both communal and personal interests of members of society would benefit from institutional pressure in support of privacy, and strong crypto for that matter.

pkulak• 13 years ago

I wasn't aware that this controversy was about the government publishing citizens' most private personal secrets on the internet. You're right, this is a whole lot different!

D_Alex• 13 years ago

Ehh... this is all relevant, but indirect. How about:

22. What is your credit card number, expiry date and security code?

And on the subject of "nothing to hide from the government": the government in United States is - still - pretty good. But the trend, the trend is a worry!

glick• 13 years ago

When people say they have nothing to hide, there is an implicit qualifier. They still have much to hide -- from coworkers, neighbors, friends, etc.

What they really mean is they have nothing to hide from an entity with which they have a very special relationship. So special is it, that it's superfluous - perhaps even disrespectful - to mention it when saying things like "I have nothing to hide," "I pay my taxes," or "I'm law abiding."

It is the relationship between the owned and the owner.

coldtea2• 13 years ago

It would be fun if "internet detectives" (think 4chan) have a look at the profiles of people with "nothing to hide" and expose all their dirty secrets (affairs, comments that could be taken as racist, tax avoidance, listening to Bieber, gossiping about coworkers, naked pics or sex chats they made with their partners, whatever) to the internets.

Especially nice it would be if that would get them fired (e.g a negative comment about their company boss in an email to a friend).

That might illuminate them about the value of privacy.

That said, they are not the targets of NSA, because they are useless to society anyway (they are not active citizens), and not a threat to any government.

But any activist, dissident, whistleblower, investigative journalist, hacker, writer, progressive politician etc, people that move society and laws forward, people from MLK to Aaron Swartz to Phil Zimmerman, are those that can and will be targeted by such measures. The same kind of people that today's J.E. Hoover's would target.

mehmehshoe2• 13 years ago

I had the same thought but would like to see this done as an experiment done with volunteers and a legitimate news source, instead of 4chan thuggery.

johnnybegoode• 13 years ago

Also read (and upvote!) this brilliant piece by the creator of @_nothingtohide: http://danielsieradski.com/nothing-to-hide/14572

HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5848168

danso• 13 years ago

Fun novelty account, but if you actually read some of the tweets, you'll see that some of these people are being facetious. For example:

NSA wants to spy on me? GO AHEAD! You'll see some sick shit!!! #NSA #privacy #government #internetsex #bringiton
I'm fine with the NSA listening to my calls, but god help them if they're reading my twitter drafts.
I'm fine with the NSA listening to my phone calls. Maybe the next time I'm getting unhelpful advice from AT&T, they could jump in and help

I know this is just a novelty account, though some on here have already called to "dox" these people. Remember that when you see a Tweet, you are literally seeing 140 characters of text, with no context to what that person was referring to or the kind of flippant personality that person may have.

Judging someone you had no previous knowledge based on a brief message...hmm, sounds like what our government agents do from time to time.

jvdh• 13 years ago

Last week I heard a perfect answer from a speaker from ISOC at a conference: If you are claiming you have nothing to hide, you are not a social creature. Normal people sometimes feel embarrassment or shame after some error, and then we would hope nobody saw that.

return0• 13 years ago

Those people's lives are probably inconsequential. Nobody cares about the things they have the 'courage' not to hide.

Tycho• 13 years ago

It doesn't matter whether as an individual you have anything to hide or not. That's completely missing the point. The problem with all this data collection/snooping is that it gives the government (or some branch of the state) far too much power.

People who do have secrets can be blackmailed. And whatever they're forced to do can potentially harm society. It doesn't even matter what the nature of the secret is.

Nobody should have that much power.

Kiro• 13 years ago

Flagged this submission. What happened to respecting other peoples' opinions?

meerita• 13 years ago

The point, in my humble opinion, about being free from surveillance is not "I don't do anything wrong anyways", it's about not being titled guilty or possible guilty. I'm not guilty, but I wont be treated as one or a potential one.

nextweek2• 13 years ago

I cannot believe that people have forgotten the reason you have to keep information from your government. Its not that you have nothing to hide right NOW. Its that if someone later got into power that wanted to suppress everybody that didn't think like them, then you have something to hide. Being a sheep is fine, but I want my freedom of expression now and in the future.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

So many people clearly are too stupid to know that means you don't give up your rights now because you won't have them when you need them.

straight_talk• 13 years ago

For 99.999% of the US population the totalitarian monitoring won't have any direct consequences in the near future. The real problem IMHO is that it makes impossible to create any kind of opposition to the current political-financial-media elite. Any potential leader of such opposition will be thoroughly studied and profiled. Nothing found to black mail him with? Well he likes to eat at a certain italian restaurant and he likes blonde women. Throw some narcotic in his food, have a 17yo girl seduce him and that guy belongs for life ...

a3n• 13 years ago

It doesn't matter if you have nothing to hide. Allowing or encouraging the government to spy without good reason creates a government that spies without good reason. A government that thinks it's your boss. A government made of people, some of whom will take up those tools enthusiastically for their own personal gain or satisfaction or advantage. A government that thinks it has rights, as a separate entity from its citizens.

Fuck that.

michas• 13 years ago

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Benjamin Franklin

tammer• 13 years ago

It amazes me how the racism embedded in our theoretical "equality" prevents people from talking about the real threat here.

Sure, there's the philosophical loss of privacy and the threat of fear-based self-censorship. But the real people under attack are those with tenuous immigration status, low income and/or affiliation with minority communities. These are the people the US has been terrorizing since 9/11, yet don't have enough social capital to get the media (or HN) involved when they're illegally searched and wrongfully accused.

Qantourisc2• 13 years ago

Must also be very very boring. Also what you may want to hide can change as social norms change. Every time I read "nothing to hide", I think about all does Jews and how many more would have died with today's internet.

pinaceae2• 13 years ago

I seriously don't get the mouthfrothing outrage. For years and years, everyone knowledgeable kept saying - if you post it on the internet, it is public.

You're using Google - Google reads your stuff. Algorithms build a profile of you, select ads, etc.

You're using Amazon - Amazon knows and never forgets what you're buying and browsing for.

You're using Credit Cards - the CC company knows a lot about you.

You have a bank account - the bank knows a lot about you.

You have a mobile phone - the operator knows a lot about you.

Ever had the opportunity to look behind the curtains? Like how banks build customer profiles? Withdraw money from ATMs regularly late at night on weekends? You like to party, noted in your internal credit profile. Implemented that shit myself. The NSA has less impact on your life than your bank.

Etc, Etc, Etc. What do you think all those CRM systems out there are used for? Those are private intelligence tools, with next to no government oversight. No auditors coming in, no whistleblowers, nothing. There are rules of course, but who, ever, has really been caught violating them? Got fined? Went to jail? Right...

And now everyones's OUTRAGED because the government dared to do the same all these private corporations have been doing all along. I don't get it. It's aok if your stuff shows up in data.com, Binley's, etc., right? No outrage, ever.

All the shouting over the Internet, posting on Twitter, Facebook, HN, reddit, .. in plaintext, documented for eternity, in plain sight. No privacy concerns there, oh no. I have accounts in 56 privately owned, for-profit communication tools - but I deeply care about privacy. Here, have my baby pictures, and my current location. Did I tell the world what I think of that Mexican place yet?

You want privacy? Then shut. the. fuck up. Don't write it down, don't take pictures, don't use your credit card. As has been known for a long, long time.

But next week all of this will be over as Apple has WWDC and the OUTRAGE of the common neckbeard will be directed to another awesome topic.

stefanix4• 13 years ago

I do agree that many of us knew about the privacy implications of software as a service already and the outrage is somewhat artificial and about reminding others.

It's still a notable event when huge amounts of personal data leave the different silos and is combined and exchanged. It's a breach of trust when you voluntarily give personal information to a company and then this information leaks to a third party where it's further exchanged with subcontractor companies. At this point accountability and transparency is completely lost.

If you have personal data on google and google abuses this information you have ways of dealing with it. You can change the service, out the company, sue, ... With an opaque shadow industry there is little you can do in case of abuse.

mpyne3• 13 years ago

But that's the thing, this data has been "leaving the silos" for years too. It's not actually new. They've improved the technology for the FISA process, sure, but it's not actually a new thing.

jnbiche• 13 years ago

Do you really not understand the difference between the government having this data and a private corporation? I'll spell it out: the government has guns and can lock you up based on their interpretation of the data, private corporations can't.

And please don't try to tell me that the government only targets the guilty with the data they collect and the observations they make. Many, many innocent people are caught up in the government's nets every day.

pinaceae2• 13 years ago

for the vast majority of people, private corporations have a larger impact on their life than the NSA.

the NSA will not touch your life. your bank, your mobile operator, your credit card company - immediate impact. if the latter want to fuck you up, you're toast as well. see all the foreclosures, etc.

this focus on government is truly strange. just one of the players, but somehow special.

the NSA has accomplished, what a lot of fucking startups are attempting - your unified social media profile. linkedin is green with jealousy.

skc• 13 years ago

I think it's more of a case of lay-people realising the irony in using say, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Whatsapp, BBM products and then complaining that someone somewhere is tracking them.

Or is the assumption in here that corporations are more trustworthy than government?

D9u2• 13 years ago

If the US government won't tell its secrets to We the People then We the People shouldn't have our privacy violated by the government.

CapitalistCartr• 13 years ago

Don't let the gov't frame the question. Just because I don't report every detail of my personal life, every thought, every word out of my mouth to my gov't does not mean I'm "hiding something". Because I refuse to cooperate spying on me doesn't mean I'm hiding something. Perhaps it means I simply know better than to entertain the paranoid obsessions of the powerful.

NanoWar• 13 years ago

I like this quote from reddit:

"People that say they have nothing to hide from the government are making the mistake of assuming they know what the government is looking for. "

(http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1fv4r6/i_belie...)

mehmehshoe2• 13 years ago

It would be a great story if someone that says they have nothing to hide would allow a private investigator access to their meta data (internet and phone) for 6 months. At the conclusion could be a link diagram of everyone they communicate with, where they travel and what interests they have. Maybe that would change some minds. I would volunteer but I have many things I want to hide.

gasull• 13 years ago

Blog post from the owner of that Twitter account:

Nothing to hide http://danielsieradski.com/nothing-to-hide/14572

baby• 13 years ago

It's not because you have nothing to hide that it's not important. People like Julien Assange are created every day, and they need support in cases like this.

simplemind• 13 years ago

We live in a society where secret detention is practiced. Where a relatively short time ago, we interned Japanese people.

Who cares about your anti-depressants.

A program like this perhaps isn't that big of a deal to a white, upper middle class family in Cambridge, but it's a threat to a Muslim man with a minivan, wife and two kids in Michigan who is afraid to call his mother in Pakistan because he might get flagged. And that's just today -- tomorrow it could be a Chinese family, a Jewish one (countries have been there before), a Mormon one or whatever our democratic mob fears at any given time...

It's all fun and games until there's a fascist dictator.

elbii• 13 years ago

It's not just about information the government is collecting on you. It's about who's responsible when that database of information is compromised by e.g. the Chinese and what they'll do with it.

homeomorphic2• 13 years ago

Ugh, I did not enjoy seeing Sam Harris on there.

voidlogic• 13 years ago

There will be a time where policies will change, because the only thing which restricts the activities of the surveillance state are policy, even our agreements with other sovereign governments; we consider that to be a stipulation of policy, rather than a stipulation of law. And because of that, a new leader will be elected, they'll flip the switch, say that because of the crisis, because of the dangers that we face in the world, some new and unpredicted threat, we need more authority, we need more power, and there will be nothing the people can do at that point to oppose it. It will be turnkey tyranny.

- Edward Snowden

sporkologist• 13 years ago

The 4th Amendment is dead. Long Live the 4th Amendment!

cupcake-unicorn• 13 years ago

I may have well been one of those people, but I recently had a terrible experience crossing the border into Canada. I was on a bus, and everyone was waived through but me. They asked the purpose of my visit, which was to see an old friend. I told them truthfully when they asked, that I'd met her on the internet years and years ago, as a teenager. I also had met her in real life before. I was pulled aside for over 30 minutes and grilled about embarrassing, irrelevant things. The border patrol then asked for me to unlock my phone to look at my email. I was shocked and asked if that was necessary and/or legal. He looked at me with this cold look and said, "This is the border. We can ask you to do anything."

I didn't have anything to hide but I just felt so violated sitting there on a bench while he looked through my phone. It was pretty traumatic for me and I've gotten flashbacks to the event a few times - it will make me take precautions and think twice before traveling with my laptop and phone if the border patrol can just ask for the password - which, I don't think they can, but they could also stop me from entering Canada probably if I denied.

It's not as obvious when it's going on behind the scenes, but it's so different for me now that I went through this event. I just can't get over how violated I felt, and honestly - I ask any of the people Tweeting for that to happen to them, for some cold-eyed patrol officer to grab your phone, force you to unlock it, and just go through your mail, Facebook, snapchat, embarrassing photos, etc. Just because it happens behind the scenes doesn't make it better.

c3d• 13 years ago

If you have nothing to hide, then you don't matter. In this information age, data is money. There's a difference between having nothing to be ashamed of and having nothing to hide.

zquestz• 13 years ago

Wow I wept a little bit for all these people. Don't people realize that you don't need to have "something to hide" to deserve privacy? How about I setup a video camera in your shower, you have nothing to hide. So why not? I promise only government officials will have access.

59nadir• 13 years ago

This is why everyone hates you, America.

People with nothing to hide

Related Stories