<story><title>People with nothing to hide</title><url>http://twitter.com/_nothingtohide</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>capnrefsmmat</author><text>Responses like these just legitimize the idea that privacy is about hiding things. It isn&amp;#x27;t. Privacy is a way of restricting the government&amp;#x27;s power over you.&lt;p&gt;Giving the government the power to read your email, tap your phone, and record your porn usage isn&amp;#x27;t bad simply because it&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;s not a question of discovering your fetishes or being embarrassed, and we shouldn&amp;#x27;t act as though having nothing to hide really is an excuse.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s a rather good paper I can recommend on the subject:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;papers.ssrn.com&amp;#x2F;sol3&amp;#x2F;papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;papers.ssrn.com&amp;#x2F;sol3&amp;#x2F;papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;(I&amp;#x27;ve posted this several times over the past few months, so this is half self-plagiarism)</text></item><item><author>john_flintstone</author><text>Questions for people with nothing to hide:&lt;p&gt;1. Have you ever had an abortion?&lt;p&gt;2. Have you ever cheated on your husband &amp;#x2F; wife?&lt;p&gt;3. Are you currently looking for a new job?&lt;p&gt;4. Have you ever being diagnosed with a mental illness?&lt;p&gt;5. Are you currently on anti-depressants?&lt;p&gt;6. Were you ever sexually abused as a child?&lt;p&gt;7. Have you ever fancied someone of the same sex?&lt;p&gt;8. Have you ever had sex with someone of the same sex?&lt;p&gt;9. Have you ever criticised your current employer or boss to anyone else?&lt;p&gt;10. Do you love all of your children equally?&lt;p&gt;11. Have you ever fantasized about...&lt;p&gt;12. Are you planning to get pregnant in the next two years?&lt;p&gt;13. Have you ever lied on a cv&amp;#x2F;resume?&lt;p&gt;14. Are you mean to your wife &amp;#x2F; husband on a regular or semi-regular basis?&lt;p&gt;15. Do you have trouble acquiring or maintaining an erection?&lt;p&gt;16. Are you one of those women who’ve never had an orgasm?&lt;p&gt;17. What prescription drugs are you currently taking?&lt;p&gt;18. Have you ever cut yourself?&lt;p&gt;19. Have you ever attempted suicide?&lt;p&gt;20. Have you contemplated suicide in the past 2 weeks?&lt;p&gt;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?&lt;p&gt;I could go on and on. None of the actions mentioned in these questions are illegal, but for many&amp;#x2F;most people, the answers would be intensely private.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>diminoten</author><text>For someone like me, someone who has explored this area philosophically (and if you think that sounded pompous, just wait), I find arguments like, &amp;quot;YES YOU DO HAVE SOMETHING TO HIDE&amp;quot; to be a) presumptive and b) not compelling.  It just smacks of a lack of understanding about personal responsibility and honesty.&lt;p&gt;What I&amp;#x27;d want, if I didn&amp;#x27;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&amp;#x27;d look for why privacy is &lt;i&gt;necessary&lt;/i&gt; and not &lt;i&gt;innate&lt;/i&gt;, because that makes more sense to me than this abstract idea of a &amp;quot;right to privacy&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Even your argument takes about a dozen leaps to arrive at the conclusion that without privacy, governments can be more private.  What you &lt;i&gt;should&lt;/i&gt; be talking about is not the government&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;If man were capable of not harassing minorities, then privacy wouldn&amp;#x27;t be such a big deal.  So no, I don&amp;#x27;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&amp;#x27;s not about hiding what &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt; have, it&amp;#x27;s about protecting minorities from the majority.  That&amp;#x27;s all.</text></comment>
<story><title>People with nothing to hide</title><url>http://twitter.com/_nothingtohide</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>capnrefsmmat</author><text>Responses like these just legitimize the idea that privacy is about hiding things. It isn&amp;#x27;t. Privacy is a way of restricting the government&amp;#x27;s power over you.&lt;p&gt;Giving the government the power to read your email, tap your phone, and record your porn usage isn&amp;#x27;t bad simply because it&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;s not a question of discovering your fetishes or being embarrassed, and we shouldn&amp;#x27;t act as though having nothing to hide really is an excuse.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s a rather good paper I can recommend on the subject:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;papers.ssrn.com&amp;#x2F;sol3&amp;#x2F;papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;papers.ssrn.com&amp;#x2F;sol3&amp;#x2F;papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;(I&amp;#x27;ve posted this several times over the past few months, so this is half self-plagiarism)</text></item><item><author>john_flintstone</author><text>Questions for people with nothing to hide:&lt;p&gt;1. Have you ever had an abortion?&lt;p&gt;2. Have you ever cheated on your husband &amp;#x2F; wife?&lt;p&gt;3. Are you currently looking for a new job?&lt;p&gt;4. Have you ever being diagnosed with a mental illness?&lt;p&gt;5. Are you currently on anti-depressants?&lt;p&gt;6. Were you ever sexually abused as a child?&lt;p&gt;7. Have you ever fancied someone of the same sex?&lt;p&gt;8. Have you ever had sex with someone of the same sex?&lt;p&gt;9. Have you ever criticised your current employer or boss to anyone else?&lt;p&gt;10. Do you love all of your children equally?&lt;p&gt;11. Have you ever fantasized about...&lt;p&gt;12. Are you planning to get pregnant in the next two years?&lt;p&gt;13. Have you ever lied on a cv&amp;#x2F;resume?&lt;p&gt;14. Are you mean to your wife &amp;#x2F; husband on a regular or semi-regular basis?&lt;p&gt;15. Do you have trouble acquiring or maintaining an erection?&lt;p&gt;16. Are you one of those women who’ve never had an orgasm?&lt;p&gt;17. What prescription drugs are you currently taking?&lt;p&gt;18. Have you ever cut yourself?&lt;p&gt;19. Have you ever attempted suicide?&lt;p&gt;20. Have you contemplated suicide in the past 2 weeks?&lt;p&gt;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?&lt;p&gt;I could go on and on. None of the actions mentioned in these questions are illegal, but for many&amp;#x2F;most people, the answers would be intensely private.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Silhouette</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Responses like these just legitimize the idea that privacy is about hiding things. It isn&amp;#x27;t.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Of course it is. Absolutely nothing about the principle of privacy and why it matters is specific to keeping secrets &lt;i&gt;from governments&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x2F;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&amp;#x27;t.</text></comment>