
Why Do We Care So Much About Privacy? - raleighm
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/06/18/why-do-we-care-so-much-about-privacy
======
balabaster
We care so much about privacy because prior to WWII millions of Jews who were
innocently going about their every day business filled out a census that asked
them their religion. Their religion was no more illegal than their existence.
A few years later they were being exterminated like vermin in an attempt to
eradicate them from Europe based entirely on a checkbox on a form. The home
address they freely provided sealing their fate.

 _" I'm not doing anything wrong, I have nothing to hide. If you're trying to
hide, you must be a criminal."_

I pray that nothing you do innocently today becomes public knowledge and
retroactively treated as a crime that threatens not only your livelihood, but
your very life and the lives of those you hold most dear.

That. _That_ is why privacy should be in _our_ hands. We should be able to
choose the information we divulge to the world about ourselves. Not have the
world know every last thing about us.

Witch hunts happen. They happen today as often as in the days of the Salem
Witch Trials. Black people in the southern States live in an atmosphere of
racism, wondering if the cop pulling them over will beat them or kill them...
most cops aren't racist. Women everywhere live in an atmosphere of sexism, yet
most men aren't sexist misogynists. LGBQT live in an atmosphere of not being
accepted and have their lives threatened regularly just because of who they
are sexually attracted to. If you don't think you could be on the receiving
end of a witch hunt just because your life is "boring", you are as naive as
you are ignorant.

Privacy matters. That's why attorney client privilege exists. That's why the
5th Amendment exists. That's why the right to remain silent exists. Just
because there is a void in public information about you, doesn't mean it needs
to be filled.

~~~
triviatise
gun owners are going through this right now. This is why gun owners are so
sensitive to any registration. They know that gun registries are a precursor
to gun confiscation and prosecution.

Historically speaking governments have always been the worst perpetrators of
violence on their own people.

~~~
balabaster
I disagree with gun registries being a precursor to confiscation and
prosecution. I think the Government in their wisdom is trying to do the right
thing. Having weapons registered means that if a crime occurs with a gun, it
can be traced to a legal owner and they can be held accountable for the crime.
This in turn means that legal gun owners will be more responsible with the
storage and use of their weapons which will reduce the amount of crimes
perpetrated by "legal" weapons. It will mean that if a weapon is stolen, it
will be reported as such because the registered owner doesn't want to be held
accountable for a crime with a stolen weapon.

There is much good that can come from registration. It will lead to more
responsible gun owners.

However, the argument on the other side of the fence is also true - criminals
will always be able to get unfettered access to illegal weapons. However,
those weapons will have to be smuggled into the country, not stolen from those
who purchased them through legal channels.

But just like the Jews, if you've got a gun and owning a gun becomes a crime
that the government decide to enforce retroactively, then you have effectively
signed your arrest warrant by registering them.

I don't think this is their intention however. Their intention is merely to
hold legal gun owners to a standard of care that I believe they _should_ be
held and currently aren't. They're saying "if you own a gun, you're going to
be expected to care for it responsibly. If you do _not_ care for it
responsibly, you are going to be held accountable for the damage it causes."

But you know what they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
The government has a history of making laws that seem to be well intended that
end up being exploited because they're overreaching while saying _" oh, we
don't mean that, we'll never enforce it in that way."_

~~~
forgottenpass
>I disagree with gun registries being a precursor to confiscation and
prosecution.

So gun owners shouldn't fear gun registries as a precursor to prosecution?

Yet in the very next sentence you advocate for prosecuting gun owners under a
strict liability that holds them responsible for anything that happens using
their gun.

>But you know what they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I'd say you've already gone too far when you criminalize someone getting their
property stolen.

~~~
balabaster
Why shouldn't you be held under strict liability for anything that happens
using your gun? It is a tool for killing. If it is used to kill someone
because you didn't store it responsibly, it was stolen and you didn't report
it stolen, why exactly shouldn't you be held accountable for your part in
that? You were accessory to a crime by your negligence to store your weapon
responsibly.

I also didn't say you _shouldn 't fear_ gun registries being a precursor to
confiscation. I suggested that the spoken intent is to hold gun owners to a
higher standard of care of their weapons. I totally understand that there
_may_ be unspoken intent to use it as a precursor to confiscation, and while I
don't believe this to be so, you're right to be wary of this. But frankly I
think too many gun owners are criminally complacent about ownership and
storage of their weapons.

A gun is serious, it should be treated as such. Store it safely and properly,
if you don't store it safely and properly and you're caught in that position
(i.e. by having it stolen, not reporting it as stolen and used in a crime),
then you should be at least be charged for negligence. I don't think there's
anything wrong with this - a gun kills. I don't care how you want to spin
"guns don't kill people, people kill people," a gun is a weapon that is
designed to kill, or at the very least used as a threat to kill. It should
_always_ be treated as such.

I don't criminalize people for ownership or having their property stolen. If
you can prove it was stored responsibly and your legally approved gun safe was
forcefully broken into and your weapon stolen and you reported it as stolen at
the time you discovered it, you have absolved yourself of the responsibility
of its use in a crime. You have acted responsibly. No charges should be laid
against you.

If it was laying around on your night stand and an opportunist kid broke into
your house and stole it, loaded and ready to kill, you didn't report it
stolen, and it falls into the hands of someone who uses it in a crime, guess
what? You're responsible for contributing to that and should be held
accountable for your part in that to some appropriate degree. That degree in
my mind is at least criminal negligence, in the same way as letting your baby
die in the back of a car on a hot day because you forgot about them or getting
into a car accident and killing someone because you were texting and not
paying attention. What about how bar tenders can be charged for over-serving
someone alcohol who then gets into a car and kills someone because they're
driving over the legal blood alcohol limit? Your action, or inaction
contributed to your weapon being used in a crime. You can argue that if it
wasn't your gun, it would've been someone else's all you like. The fact is, it
_wasn 't_ someone else's, it was _yours._ If it was someone else's, they would
be charged with the same thing you were if they'd acted with the same
negligence you did.

If you have a gun, it is your responsibly to store it safely, treat it with
the gravity it's warranted. If it is stolen, report it as such. Be a
responsible gun owner. If everyone treated their weapons with this amount of
care, nobody would be screaming for gun registries.

------
belorn
In an article full of legal cases and law, I am a bit surprised to not hear
one of the better argument for privacy.

Put me in a legal case where I (and only I) have full access to mobile data
and Internet traffic for each of the 12 juries, judge, lawyers, prosecutor and
their families and friends. Does the design of the legal system still work
when one party can use data together with machine intelligence in order to
figure out how to influence and manipulate the participants? I think the
answer is a clear No, and I have heard a professor of legal history come to
the same conclusion. The legal system as it is currently designed can not
operate without privacy, and it is hard to imagine a system that can.

~~~
hammock
That's not too compelling to me. One of the principles of a jury is that it is
of your peers, which implies that to some extent you do know them and they
know you. A jury of perfect strangers unrelated to you is not constitutional.

~~~
lmkg
> jury is that it is of your peers, which implies that to some extent you do
> know them and they know you

Does not follow. I'm not aware of any context where that's part of what "peer"
means.

> A jury of perfect strangers unrelated to you is not constitutional.

Generally speaking, if you're _not_ a perfect stranger, you're kicked off a
jury for conflict of interest.

A "jury of one's peers" means people in the same social class as you, i.e. a
jury that is not biased against you. The word "peer" is a hold-over from
English society with more pronounced social classes, and is meant strictly as
a counterbalance against those social classes.

Note that the Consitution itself doesn't actually contain the word "peer," but
rather uses the phrase "impartial jury."

~~~
hammock
If they are in the same social class as you, then you know that about them.
Not sure how that refutes my argument.

~~~
bilbo0s
Just to be evenhanded here, I suspect that in most criminal cases the jurors
are likely NOT in the same social class as the defendant.

That said, having jurors be people you know seems a little unfair too. So a
jury of perfect strangers seems greatly unfair in the postulated context of
asymmetric privacy, and a jury of friends seems unfair as it's possible they
would let you off regardless of evidence.

Problem is, asymmetric privacy is a reality today. So, yeah, tough problem.

------
dayvid
Why do the people who want our data care so much about their own personal
privacy?

[http://time.com/money/4346766/mark-zuckerberg-
houses/](http://time.com/money/4346766/mark-zuckerberg-houses/)

If everyone knew what everyone else was doing, it might change the world in a
positive way (Not really sure, but it would be a change, e.g. #metoo, panama
papers). Otherwise, it's only a privileged group of people who can maintain
their privacy while accessing other's personal information.

And that's a well established power dynamic throughout history.

------
decentralised
"I'm considerably more pro-privacy than I was a few years ago. A few years
ago, my position was closer to "in a well-running society it's probably
optimal that everyone sees everything, the value for privacy tech for ordinary
people is (i) to let them buy weed, put up beds so people can sleep over in
offices, and otherwise circumvent silly regulations, and (ii) to maintain a
healthy balance of power, because even if more transparency is good, the
government only having the all-seeing eye and everyone else being in the dark
would give too much power to the government".

Things that changed my mind, and made me believe that even in a hypothetical
perfectly equal and fair society people having some privacy is a good idea
include:

\- Reading Robin Hanson and others' literature on signalling, and seeing just
how large a portion of our lives it still is. Basically, I see privacy as a
way to prevent signalling concerns from encompassing all of our activity, and
creating spheres where we are free to optimize for our own happiness and just
our own happiness, and not what other people think about us.

\- Having a deeper understanding of the ways that it's possible to make other
people's lives suck even as a law-abiding private citizen, and realizing that
privacy is an important self-defense tool for those situations.

\- Realizing more deeply that "the people" are not always virtuous, and that
social pressure as a mechanism for influencing people's behavior doesn't
always lead to results I approve of (see: recent string of internet mobs
leading to people getting fired for political views). Realizing how bad
mainstream media is even today, which makes me more understanding of people's
desire to protect themselves from them.

Mass surveillance is problematic because (i) I don't trust governments and
large corporations to have interests that are aligned with us, and (ii) it
creates points of centralized data collection that could get hacked, leading
to everyone getting that data even if that was never the original intention.
That said, in the physical space it's pretty unavoidable, so we should at
least work hard to make the internet a more privacy-preserving place."

Vitalik Buterin
[https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/8m3wj1/rothschild...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/8m3wj1/rothschilds_in_crypto_goodbadneutral/dzmspgv/)

~~~
blattimwind
The "in a well-running society it's probably optimal that everyone sees
everything" view is something practically only held by people who don't
deviate in any significant way from societal norms. It's obvious to "deviants"
\-- or people sharing minimal insight into the actual breadth of people's
behaviours and tastes -- that it's not at all something to strive for.

A society of the "everyone sees everything" kind is a tyranny of the masses
not just limited to your usual racism and whatnot, but crushing down on
literally _every property of a human being_. Your run-of-the-mill Orwellian
nightmare is a fluffy wonderland of individualism in comparison.

~~~
dllthomas
There's a thread of thought, in amongst radical transparency memes, that
bringing these things out into the light will increase acceptance of deviation
(... as a good thing).

That may well be wrong, but I don't think it's _obviously_ wrong. FWIW, I
think it's probably true that the dynamic will exist, but it probably won't be
enough to defang your argument.

~~~
pixl97
>that bringing these things out into the light will increase acceptance of
deviation

Eh, there is a lot of very complex sociology going on here. Deviation is
rather not accepted by humanity, our species is rather homogeneous, and has
remained so across long periods of time and cultures.

Deviants that have a significant size will probably survive. It's the very
small clusters of new deviations that are apt to be eradicated before they can
get a foothold.

------
ahartmetz
The kind of absence of privacy between consumers and internet giants is also a
massive power imbalance: they know many useful and compromising things about
billions of consumers. What do we know about Mark Zuckerberg?

I know that some self-serving bullshit about post-privacy came out of
Facebook, but I don't see Zuckerberg or Sandberg leading by example.

~~~
duxup
>What do we know about Mark Zuckerberg?

I always wanted to know with all the data available, was Mark's data as
available as everyone else's, or did they protect it?

~~~
mrwilhelm
IMO probably they did. It could be done to prevent leak from an fb employee.

------
ordinaryperson
"People are inconsistent about the kind of exposure they’ll tolerate. We don’t
like to be fingerprinted by government agencies, a practice we associate with
mug shots and state surveillance, but we happily hand our thumbprints over to
Apple, which does God knows what with them."

Great point. People say they care about privacy but willingly Instagram and
Snapchat and YouTube every minor detail about their lives.

Not everyone of course, but a lot. Facebook has what, 2.1 billion users?

There's a vast asymmetry between the privacy people say they want and in
reality how quickly they'll give it up in exchange for free services.

But this article is a good legal history of American law.

~~~
kraigspear
Just talked to God, this is what he said.

Your fingerprint data is encrypted, stored on device, and protected with a key
available only to the Secure Enclave. Your fingerprint data is used only by
the Secure Enclave to verify that your fingerprint matches the enrolled
fingerprint data. It can’t be accessed by the OS on your device or by any
applications running on it. It's never stored on Apple servers, it's never
backed up to iCloud or anywhere else, and it can't be used to match against
other fingerprint databases.

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/ht204587](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/ht204587)

~~~
jiveturkey
I just took a random survey of 5 people around me. 5 out of 5 didn't know
that, and assumed Apple had a copy of their fingerprint.

The point, in case you missed it? The fact that privacy is not actually given
up doesn't matter. People are willing to give it up to gain some perceived
benefit.

------
nomadiccoder
I dont feel that the question was truly answered. WHY do we care? The author
writes about human behavior and discusses the 'natural right' of privacy but
arent natural rights just customs from previous generations. Observing human
behavior might suggest that privacy somehow is a desired trait from natural
selection. ie when pooping, animals are more vulnerable (maybe) suggesting
that privacy somehow aids in security from preditors. Financial Transactional
data privacy allows a competitive advantage on future trades.

Basically id like to hear arguments that get down to the fundamental reasons
why humans care about privacy.

~~~
DoubleGlazing
I have two reasons for wanting privacy. For practical reasons, the less info
that is "out there" about me reduces the attack surface for scammers, ID
thieves and the like.

But leaving aside crime and misuse concerns a more fundamental reason why I
want privacy is simply because that is my personal preference. And that is a
preference I shouldn't have to justify to anyone. I suppose if I were pushed
to provide some kind of a justification I would say that I get comfort from
knowing that I am privy to information that no one else is - it helps to
define me as an individual.

------
blakesterz
Not a bad article at all. A big chunk of it is a review of "The Known Citizen
A History of Privacy in Modern America" by Sarah E. Igo

I like this quote: "This means the freedom to choose what to do with your
body, or who can see your personal information, or who can monitor your
movements and record your calls—who gets to surveil your life and on what
grounds."

(I always like to see just how much garbage uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger
block on articles that are privacy focused. This one might be a new record: 51
and 18 respectively)

------
jhoechtl
Because of the Stasi in german peoples republic or the Gestapo in the third
reich. Two examples which only by coincidence happen to be Germany related,
there are certainly many more examples like that.

I did not read the article, I admit, and won't do that as it is deliberately
catch to attract click-bait. But is is so utterly bullshit to even phrase it
in such a way.

------
lalos
Good regulation protects people from themselves. Before the Cambridge
Analytica/Facebook fiasco, people would claim why care about privacy I have
nothing to hide. Its not about hiding the things you do, its about protecting
you from smarter people with ulterior motives that might use your data to
straight manipulate you (make you buy something, make you feel something, make
you do something, etc). We have to change the dialogue regarding privacy into
its for your own benefit not because you're doing illegal activities but
because your data is valuable to many outside actors.

------
pasbesoin
Throughout my life, I've had people discover facts about me and use them
against me.

Personally. "Friends" who used -- and sometimes stole -- secrets to bully me.

Commercially: Insurance companies that used past treatment to discriminate
against me. (In combination with the employer-provided insurance model, that
marginalizes individual purchasers.)

So, I for one worry about privacy, because I've experienced first hand what
its breach has cost me. I imagine I'm hardly alone.

------
awat
I’d make the argument that privacy is a neccessary pillar for growth in
society. Things like marijuana usage could likely not have become legal had
private use not occurred and many people found it to be not harmful. This
private space for experimentation and self-evaluation (of products,
substances, and norms) isn’t given much attention but could adversely change
society if it’s lost imho.

------
mpweiher
How about: "That's none of your damn business"?

~~~
everdev
Yes, that's the surface response, but what's deeper than that?

Ultimately I think it's a rational fear of being ostracized (or worse) for
having believed or done something deemed by the group to be "not OK". The
right to privacy shoes us to explore the nature of ourselves without harming
others and without putting us in danger of violating social norms.

The counter argument might be that with more visibility and openness, the more
tolerant we all might be if each others faults, but unfortunately history does
not seem to demonstrate this.

~~~
matz1
Information wants to be free, its make more sense to promote openness and
transparency. LGBT is gaining acceptance, one of the reason is I believe its
because its more visible.

~~~
Bakary
There should still be some way for individuals to have the possibility to
experience different facets of themselves. To give a stereotypical example, a
middle-aged software programmer might want to experiment with psychedelic
substances once in a while without the hassle of having to explain it to
people in more mainstream spheres of his life. If every encounter has to be
accounted for and recorded, this introduces significant mental strain and ends
up impoverishing our lives.

~~~
matz1
So the issue is, in this context, to be able to experiment with psychedelic
substances without hassle. Why do I have to explain it to people in the first
place? Maybe because lack of information of knowledge about psychedelic
substances ? More transparency and openness can help.

Another example, Why I do I feel the need to close the bathroom door when I
take a dump ? Because it considered taboo or weird. But if more and more
people take a dump with the door open, it will be less weird.

Its a hassle too to have to keep things private.

~~~
Bakary
I mean it more in the sense of different social worlds. For instance you might
relate differently to your relatives than with your friends. You might act in
a certain way with some friends and not with other circles without it being
duplicitous, but rather different facets of your identity that could not find
an adequate expression if every aspect of your life was socially interlinked
with every other.

Even if norms change to be far more permissive, there will still be issues
with this. Besides, norms are never that permissive in absolute terms since
some form of hierarchy quickly sets itself up in response to changing
circumstances. For instance in some past contexts a young man might want to
hide his promiscuity and adventurous experiences, whereas in some modern
contexts he might want to hide his lack of promiscuity and adventurous
(instagrammable?) experiences.

~~~
matz1
Norms always change and I will always have to adapt. In the near future, the
advancement of technology make it harder and harder to keep information
private. So I better be get used to worlds where every aspect of my life is
socially interlinked with every other.

------
wpdev_63
I would say we don't care enough. There hasn't been any real blow back from
the nsa vault leaks.

The government has and still is monitoring all forms of internet communication
in the US en masse. Now they want to implement camera surveillance programs
that use AI to track movements of people.

Where are the protests? Where are our political leaders? Our DAs, Supreme
Justice, and what have you. You hear about these leaks almost monthly at this
point and there are no repercussions. It will continue business as usual.

------
osrec
Do we really care that much about privacy? We really should, but every
Facebook scandal that goes seemingly unnoticed by the majority of the general
public makes me think otherwise...

------
readingnews
Not sure how to say this: HN keeps linking to articles that are behind "the
first ones free" paywalls. Admittedly, I recently read two articles on New
Yorker that were thought provoking, and perhaps that is why people subscribe,
but should we not be linking to news that we can get without walls?

~~~
jihadjihad
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

~~~
readingnews
I see your point:

" Are paywalls ok?

It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds.

In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do
so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic. "

So, I am off topic, and behind a paywall :)

Once again, I need to find a new place to read great news.

