

Nothing to Hide - dylangs1030
http://danielsieradski.com/nothing-to-hide/14572

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Tycho
As always, the default assumption is that the government can be trusted
completely. It can't. It's made up of corruptible human beings with their own
interests.

Even if you personally have nothing to hide, you should be worried at how much
power the holders of this data have. If you blackmail someone into doing
something, it's not necessarily just the blackmail victim who suffers. It can
be used to corrupt any of our institutions.

~~~
dylangs1030
Exactly.

Historically, governments have never been an altruistic entity that helps
people; rather, it has always fulfilled the Hobbesian need for order.

Human beings are quite capable of being good, they may even be inherently so.
But the outliers are so bad and corrupt the system so absolutely that no
innovation or progress can be had for mankind without an organized system of
law.

Unfortunately, this comes with a consequent liability for those in charge of
the system ("government") to abuse their power, deeming their short lifetimes
and microcosmic plans more important than the needs of the people and the
society as a whole.

This is the fundamental problem that prevents utopian ideals from being
plausible. This is what we need to constantly fight against, because
governments are unfortunately a choice of either chaos or control -
appropriately defined as "which option is less worse?"

This is also why we need checks and balances. We cannot allow agencies like
the NSA to conduct surveillance on a wide scale. They use fear and the threat
of unknown danger to wield powers we do not know about, let alone elect to
them. It is corrupt and an abuse of the founding principles of this country,
and it needs to be stopped.

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natch
Kudos for putting something up, but I'm afraid this is ineffective.

It's not apparent to an impatient visitor which side of the argument you are
on, especially to an unthinking visitor, the kind who falls into the "nothing
to hide" fallacy.

People on the internet don't read, they skim. And they are unlikely to follow
the link at the end that finally, unlike your page, contains an explanation
that attempts to refute the "nothing to hide" thinking.

It would be more effective if you started out at the top with a clear
statement, then made an attempt to back it up by explaining it in terms even
"idiots" (to borrow your word) will understand.

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diminoten
Well, that first paragraph disqualifies the article almost immediately.
Considering the most important words in that sentence, "vast majority" have no
citation, it sets the tone for the rest of the article.

The second paragraph insinuates that monitoring activists is an immoral act on
the part of the FBI, which is completely untrue.

The third paragraph calls the leaking of information to the press a
constitutional right, which is absolutely not true. Is it immoral of the
government to keep any secrets at all? If it's not, then is it immoral of the
government to take steps to prevent their secrets from being released? If
_that 's_ not, then isn't "monitoring" for potential leaks at their source
just another example of the government attempting to prevent leaks?

Paragraphs 4 and 5 are spot on. So is paragraph 6, except for the last
sentence. "Protecting innocents from harm", and the link is to a generic body
scanner article? If the argument is that the government has at one point in
recent history caused emotional or physical harm to someone who didn't
"deserve it", then I guess it's right, but it's both as right and as useful to
say the government didn't cure my kid of cancer or fix my broken bicycle. It's
completely irrelevant to the argument the paragraph is trying to make,
specifically that even if the government did collect data about a potential
attack, they're incapable of saving those people.

Paragraph 7 is also correct.

Paragraph 8 is downright offensive, but that's probably the point. There is
absolutely zero evidence to suggest that the FBI had _credible_ and
_actionable_ information about the Tsarnaev brother's intent, and to attempt
to try to talk about pre-9/11 government agency behavior with regard to
today's situation is about as useful as talking about how Roosevelt may have
known about Pearl Harbor. Historically interesting, absolutely irrelevant to
now.

You had an agenda, clearly, before you wrote this. You shoehorned in
irrelevant facts and articles to attempt to make a point that doesn't need to
be made. Now you're calling people idiots because you think this is a black
and white issue.

Frankly, I think it's you who's the idiot.

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antninja
It's worth repeating that the name for people who are constantly being watched
is 'prisoners'.

~~~
roryokane
No, that’s not what ‘prisoner’ means. My dictionary says it’s either someone
in an actual prison, “a person captured and kept confined by an enemy,
opponent, or criminal”, or “a person who is or feels confined or trapped by a
situation or set of circumstances”. Those definitions are close to what I had
guessed the definition of ‘prisoner’ to be (“trapped or restricted in
movement”).

People who are constantly being watched may be prisoners in that they feel
trapped by the surveillance, and limited in the actions they can take, but
that is not an instrinsic part of being watched. Some people being watched are
prisoners, but not all. You want a word that means “people under
surveillance”. I don’t think there is any such single word, like ‘surveillee’.

~~~
dylangs1030
Do you not feel trapped or confined by the breaches of privacy commited by the
government? That would satisfy your definition.

~~~
roryokane
As I said in my second paragraph, feeling trapped or confined by the breaches
of privacy commited by the government “is not an instrinsic part of being
watched”. It doesn’t matter whether I personally feel trapped or confined. As
long as there is someone out there who is “constantly being watched” yet does
not feel trapped or confined, then that means “someone who is constantly being
watched” is a bad definition for ‘prisoner’. And I’m sure there are people out
there who don’t feel trapped or confined by the government’s surveillance.

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rschmitty
Nothing to hide but the title and subtext of this article?

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dylangs1030
I think the founding principle of the United States is the truth that
governments cannot be trusted. Historically, governments represent, at best, a
necessary evil. At worst they destroy human society utterly in a maelstrom of
corruption and power abuse.

The founding fathers (imperfect as they were) put an incredible amount of
effort into defining a rigorous checks and balances system. These were people
who rebelled against the tyranny of "divine rule" and the right of monarchs to
wield supreme executive power.

They could not have anticipated the tyrannies we have to rebel against, but
it's our turn. Privacy is not even _defined_ as an explicit right in the
United States constitution - this is not because it isn't lawful, but because
it is deservedly a _proposition_ not requiring proof.

I'm not suggesting a revolution, but the United States government has devolved
from the ideals it once represented. Surveillance of this magnitude and
breaches of constitutional right (in the spirit of the law, and in the spirit
of fundamental propositions) would never have been done by the fledgling
American state.

That would be more closely characterized as the sort of injustice that
_caused_ our revolution. We need to bring the government back into alignment
with its historical ideals of liberty - the zeitgeist of "land of the brave
and home of the free" is no longer ours to claim if we don't have the courage
to demand our liberty.

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johnnybegoode
This is a brilliant piece. Great examples too. Thank you for writing this.

