
People with nothing to hide - alfo
http://twitter.com/_nothingtohide
======
john_flintstone
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.

~~~
capnrefsmmat
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](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)

~~~
diminoten
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.

~~~
Ygg2
I don't think that privacy has anything to do with government. Privacy to me
at least, is the ability to filter information I present to other people or
groups of people.

------
heyitsnick
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...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/03/22/AR2007032201882.html) [2]
[http://epic.org/privacy/nsl/](http://epic.org/privacy/nsl/)

~~~
skore
> 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.

------
ck2
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.

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

~~~
D9u
"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

~~~
sirclueless
This is extremely counterproductive. You aren't going to get anywhere
simultaneously bemoaning the damage caused by extremist acts and the excesses
of the NSA.

When you point out the failures of the NSA to stop specific instances of
terrorism, it only suggests that they need more resources and legal
surveillance. The reasons for wanting the NSA surveillance to stop have to be
that the innumerable injustices suffered by citizens under a surveillance
state would be worse than the occasional extremist attack that would be
preventable under such surveillance.

~~~
akiselev
No, that's not what he is saying at all. With the maddening amount of
resources ($80 billion for fuck's sake) spent on surveillance of both foreign
and domestic communications, incidents where the agencies have the resources
and intelligence to stop attacks but don't/can't shows that no amount of money
spent or rights lost will give us absolute safety.

------
dylangs1030
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](http://danielsieradski.com/nothing-to-hide/14572)

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

~~~
tome
> 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.

~~~
dylangs1030
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.

------
kefka
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.

~~~
miguelrochefort
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.

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

------
downandout
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%.

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

------
nodata
Obligatory reading:

The Eternal Value of Privacy
[http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securityma...](http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2006/05/70886)

Reddit comment from this week:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1fv4r6/i_belie...](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1fv4r6/i_believe_the_government_should_be_allowed_to/caeb3pl)

~~~
tripzilch
> Reddit comment from this week:
> [http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1fv4r6/i_belie...](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1fv4r6/i_believe_the_government_should_be_allowed_to/caeb3pl)

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...](http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127461)

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

------
coldtea
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.

~~~
mehmehshoe
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.

------
cupcake-unicorn
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.

------
pinaceae
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.

~~~
jnbiche
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.

~~~
pinaceae
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.

------
davisr
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.

~~~
gbog
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
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.

------
tammer
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.

------
jvdh
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.

------
baddox
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.

~~~
jedbrown
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
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).

~~~
techsupporter
Hell, Texas even fingerprints you for a driver license or state-issued ID card
and has since the late 1960s. Now they even get thumbprints on renewals.
(Transportation Code, 541.142(b))

------
danso
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.

------
droopyEyelids
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.

------
straight_talk
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 ...

------
coldcode
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.

~~~
ck2
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.

~~~
scotty79
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.

------
glick
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.

------
Tycho
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.

------
a3n
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.

------
NanoWar
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...](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1fv4r6/i_believe_the_government_should_be_allowed_to/caeo5u9))

------
marvin
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,

------
jon_black
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.

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

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

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

~~~
miguelrochefort
Read my reply to the first comment (the one asking for "personal"
information).

~~~
EliRivers
So you want to choose what rules apply to you in any given context? Or is it
just that you're happy to be told by the government what the rules are for
each context?

~~~
miguelrochefort
I want society to be more open. People hide who they are because other people
hide who they are. Being open in a society where everybody else only show
their good side is detrimental to me. It gives a false image of reality.

I despise the government.

~~~
bad_user
> _People hide who they are because other people hide who they are._

NO dude, people hide who they are because other people _don 't like_ who they
are or because other people may _wrongly interpret_ who they are without the
proper context, a fact that is known throughout history to have lead to
discrimination, marginalization and even genocide when taken to the extreme.

------
simplemind
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.

------
voidlogic
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

------
nextweek2
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.

------
D9u
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.

------
foobarqux
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.

------
CapitalistCartr
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.

------
mehmehshoe
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.

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zquestz
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.

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skc
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?

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meerita
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.

------
Qantourisc
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.

------
elbii
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.

------
gasull
Blog post from the owner of that Twitter account:

Nothing to hide [http://danielsieradski.com/nothing-to-
hide/14572](http://danielsieradski.com/nothing-to-hide/14572)

------
c3d
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.

------
baby
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.

------
noerps
Being ironic on twitter is part of the problem.

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

HN thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5848168](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5848168)

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

------
miguelrochefort
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.

~~~
VexXtreme
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.

~~~
alan_cx
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.

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

------
59nadir
This is why everyone hates you, America.

------
return0
Those people's lives are probably inconsequential. Nobody cares about the
things they have the 'courage' not to hide.

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

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

Benjamin Franklin

------
beshrkayali
This is ridicules.

~~~
beshrkayali
I just read this [http://danielsieradski.com/nothing-to-
hide/14572](http://danielsieradski.com/nothing-to-hide/14572) and understood
the goal. So +1.

------
asv
The background they chose is nice.

