
Why ‘I Have Nothing to Hide’ Is the Wrong Way to Think About Surveillance - dsr12
https://www.wired.com/2013/06/why-i-have-nothing-to-hide-is-the-wrong-way-to-think-about-surveillance/
======
DigitalSea
I am surprised that this Wired article didn't mention anything related to
Snowden, considering he was the one who blew the lid on mass surveillance.
Edward Snowden summed this up perfectly:

>Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have
nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech
because you have nothing to say.

~~~
msimpson
> ...article didn't mention anything related to Snowden, considering he was
> the one who blew the lid on mass surveillance.

I really wish people would look beyond Snowden. It isn't as if there was zero
knowledge of these types of programs or whistleblowers before him. William
Binney, Thomas Drake, J. Kirk Wiebe, and Edward Loomis, just to name a few,
deserve a lot more credit in this instance.

~~~
Nomentatus
Published evidence goes back to the eighties, but made virtually no difference
- until Snowden blew the lid off. Respect to all the others, yup, but Snowden
broke the issue wide open.

~~~
msimpson
You need to reevaluate your definition of that idiom.

~~~
Nomentatus
You'll have to disambiguate (two idioms above) and specify your advice.
References welcome.

~~~
msimpson
The idiom "blow the lid off" means to publicly expose something which was
previously secret or hidden. As you said yourself, evidence for these types of
programs has existed for decades. Therefore, Snowden did not blow the lid off
anything. What he did, instead, was to present corroborating evidence which
added much needed detail in regard to such programs. I'm not trying to devalue
his effort, just pointing out that he isn't some lone ranger. And the fact
that so many people payed attention this time around had a lot more to do with
the criminality of his actions rather than the information he presented.

~~~
Nomentatus
Alas it this knowledge was hidden from the vast majority of people who rely on
TV news for a long time. "Blow the lid off" doesn't mean the first person to
reveal something, it refers to an explosion that can't be ignored. Kudos to
the rest, but he was the one who really rang the gong.

Many revealed the Holocaust to the Allies during WWII, but very sadly, no-one
managed "to blow the lid off" until Germany collapsed. "The Nazis attempted to
keep the Holocaust a secret, but in August 1942, Dr. Gerhart Riegner, the
representative of the World Jewish Congress in Geneva, Switzerland, learned
what was going on from a German source. Riegner asked American diplomats in
Switzerland to inform Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, one of America’s most prominent
Jewish leaders, of the mass murder plan. But the State Department,
characteristically insensitive and influenced by anti-Semitism, decided not to
inform Wise.

The rabbi nevertheless learned of Riegner’s terrible message from Jewish
leaders in Great Britain. He immediately approached Under Secretary of State
Sumner Welles, who asked Wise to keep the information confidential until the
government had time to verify it. Wise agreed and it was not until November
1942 that Welles authorized the release of Riegner’s message.

Wise held a press conference on the evening of November 24, 1942. The next
day’s New York Times reported his news on its tenth page. Throughout the rest
of the war, the Times and most other newspapers failed to give prominent and
extensive coverage to the Holocaust. During World War I, the American press
had published reports of German atrocities that subsequently turned out to be
false. As a result, journalists during World War II tended to approach
atrocity reports with caution." [http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-
ii/american-response...](http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/american-
response-to-the-holocaust)

So I thank Edward Snowden, even more than I thank the rest.

~~~
msimpson
> ...this knowledge was hidden from the vast majority of people who rely on TV
> news...

They seem so much more enlightened now:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M&t=1336](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M&t=1336)

> "Blow the lid off" doesn't mean the first person to reveal something...

Which is probably why you remember Riegner, yet give no mention of Leon
Feiner.

> ...it refers to an explosion that can't be ignored.

Sure, or an artful twist to facilitate some hero worship.

~~~
Nomentatus
Just credit where it's due, effective action is praiseworthy, and perhaps even
more praiseworthy than relatively ineffective but noble actions. I don't
understand your willingness to pick out one actor to knock. Why not at least
praise them all, as I do? Because that's the difference between us, I praise
them all and you want to knock one. Your blasts don't reveal much about your
motive for that - do you perhaps want to argue against "Great Man Theory" and
in favor of the "historical power of the masses", and somehow think any
individual achievement anywhere in history would disprove the latter, or
something?

The "artful twist" is built-in to not just that idiom but also "blow wide
open." It's not a coincidence, it's central to the meaning.

~~~
msimpson
> I don't understand your willingness to pick out one actor to knock.

I'm not, and I don't understand your necessity to pick out one above others.

> Why not at least praise them all.

Easy, now. Don't forget that was my argument.

> Your blasts don't ... (unintelligible) ... or something?

Ugh, no. Let's not digress, again...

> The "artful twist" is built-in to not just that idiom but also "blow wide
> open." It's not a coincidence, it's central to the meaning.

That idiom is overused. That "artful twist" lost its impact a long time ago
and "blow wide open" is just a variant. These days both are highly subjective
(as illustrated above).

No, the impact from Snowden's actions are useful but no more explosive than
what was, and is now becoming, known to those of us who were paying attention
all along.

Which is the entire point of my original comment. Would you criticize the WSJ
for not name dropping Trump in an article on political stupidity? Or did he
blow that wide open, too?

~~~
Nomentatus
Such condescension. But I don't think you've added anything. It's pretty clear
on this page that we were amongst those paying attention, but didn't have much
company. Thanks largely to Snowden, now we do.

~~~
msimpson
After a litany of increasingly obtuse replies each growing further away from
my original point to the extent that you actually attempted to turn my own
argument against me, you better believe I'm going to be condescending.

Talk about not adding anything... Good grief, and good night.

~~~
Nomentatus
Wow. Just wow.

------
type0
One of my relatives also said this "I have nothing to hide" BS, I replied by
asking who they were talking about. Response: anyone but the criminals. Hmm,
so I demanded to install a spy app on their phone to be able to monitor
everything they do, where they are, record the conversations etc. They
declined this offer, either implying that they perceive me as a criminal or
they confirmed to being hypocritical about this reasoning. Also this reasoning
implies that government agents and other officials are somehow immune from
illegal or criminal activities.

Edit: my impression is that the general public somehow thinks that this data
collected from mass surveillance is stored so securely that it can never be
accessed by criminals. The only thing that could ever change this perception
is some major breach of personal information followed by massive economic
consequences, otherwise no one cares and politicians care too much about they
own power that they will only expand surveillance efforts.

~~~
thomastjeffery
You just described the vast majority of my relatives. There is a lot of
teaching for me to do...

------
hzhou321
The right way to think about privacy would be "is that privacy worthwhile to
protect". There is no absolute in reality. Everything is a balance. And that
balance is constantly shifting. We, human, are experts in handling shifting
balance though. Do not be stupid (blindly trusting any party, including our
government or google), but do not be paranoid either (worrying about potential
crisis every day). Just live your life, and use common sense.

~~~
Nomentatus
Go with the herd, don't go nuts look for cliffs upcoming. That could work. Or
not.

------
woodandsteel
The thing that worries me most about all the personal data the government has
is not its using it to indict people. It is that it will take information that
would be embarrassing to politicians and either use it to blackmail them, or
hand it over to the opposition to use in an election (from what I understand,
J. Edgar Hoover did that). If that is going on, then you don't really have a
democracy any more.

------
jhbadger
There are good points in the article, but I'm annoyed that they bring up the
"lobster law" as so many articles about "absurd laws you might be breaking
without knowing it" do. There's actually a very valid reason why possessing a
small lobster is illegal -- immature lobsters haven't bred yet and if you want
to have lobsters in the future you shouldn't harvest them.

~~~
throwaway11122
The validity of the reasons doesn't come into this because the point isn't
that "possessing lobsters being illegal is stupid". The pint is "lobster are
illegal, who would've guessed, can you imagine having a lobster and ending up
in jail?, and can you imagine how many other thousands of unknown laws are you
breaking right now?, it's not possible to keep track of them all"

------
ouid
I would like to argue that the fourth amendment implicitly protects against
legislation whose only method of enforcement would require unreasonable
search.

If you cannot observe any direct effects of an action without searching the
person who performed the action, then it _cannot_ be a criminal action, and
theres a reasonable argument that this follows from the fourth amendment.

------
thomastjeffery
Today we need to expand the title from "Surveillance" to "Privacy".

Privacy is integral to liberty. That is why this matters so much.

------
Razengan
Just tell politicians to submit to surveillance, after all, they should have
nothing to hide.

~~~
gumby
Ideas like this sound sensible on the surface, but they have unfortunate side
effects.

For example if politicians must disclose a lot of private information, only
those who don't care about that will become politicians. And then since they
are comfortable with it, they won't see any reason to control dissemination of
others' private info.

(BTW I'm not criticizing you by saying this; I don't know a good fix).

But you know how everyone gets a blast of schadenfreude when that anti-drink-
driving politician is pulled over for driving dangerously after having a few
too many? Of course I laugh too, but I wonder if they have been so vocal about
the issue because they know how dangerous it is. Whereas I, who drink little
and don't even like to drive, probably wouldn't pay much attention to the
issue if I became a politician.

~~~
Razengan
I agree with you. But forcing lawmakers to give up their privacy too would at
least, hopefully, theoretically, level the playing field..

Same way as we now at least hold them subject to the same laws involving
money, taxes, and can use those laws to indict them.

~~~
gumby
> Same way as we now at least hold them subject to the same laws involving
> money, taxes, and can use those laws to indict them.

Actually you can't really, and again for good reason, and again with
unfortunate side effects as well.

Legislators have legislative immunity for good reason: otherwise people would
use the courts to attack legislators for making decisions the attackers don't
like (the emolument suit against Trump is avowedly similar[1], although he has
a slightly different immunity). You can, after all, attack them just as well
via the ballot box. In the US the FBI can still investigate crimes they
suspect were committed by sitting legislators, and the house or senate can
waive one of their members' immunity, so it kind of works.

At the opposite extreme, criminals run for office in India in order to take
advantage of the legislative immunity from prosecution.

All this goes in the "some problems are simple to characterize but not simple
to resolve" bucket. When people hear famous quotes from very smart people
along the line of "if your explanation of your problem is complex, perhaps you
don't really understand it" they often confuse that with "your solution must
be simple too."

[1] I just heard an interview with one of the law professors bringing suit,
Zephyr Teachout, who said she thought it would likely go nowhere but that it
was worth making his life difficult. Even if you consider Trump an
irredeemably corrupt mastermind, it is abuse of the legal system to use it
when you know you'll fail. Not that this is the first time someone filed suit
just to annoy someone else.

