I don't think many people actually care much about privacy. There are a few, and they're loud. But look at what matters in politics -- both major political tribes in the US are only interested in privacy and protection from the government as it relates to their own interest, but they are perfectly happy to use that power against their perceived opponents.
Thirty years ago, one perceived element of moral superiority in the West was revelations of the extensive internal surveillance in places like East Germany and own-spying. There used to be news items and documentaries mocking this behavior and intimating how backward and uncouth those governments were to stoop to furiously wiretapping irrelevant private conversations.
So, whether the world has changed enough to justify it, people still do care and when adequately informed about some magistrate furiously eavesdropping on private matters, people universally recognize this is antisocial bizarre conduct.
It is my opinion that people do not about privacy as much as they did in your mention Cold War-era times (or the tail end of it, anyway). They've been shown how easy it is to trade their privacy for considerable convenience and now they're in so deep that the idea of our governments tracking us seems remarkably mundane. Normalization is a helluva drug.
Great point. Convenience plays a hell of a role in a lot of society's issues. I go back to a song by Deee-lite where she sings "Convenience is the enemy" - I've always thought that was pretty pertinent in a lot of ways, this is just one more example.
Meh, collecting information is different from acting on it. My underdtaning, which could be wrong, was that people legitimately lived in fear of getting found out by the stazi. There isn’t a good reason to fear the NSA based on current actions, that I’m aware of anyway.
I’m afraid the NSA regularly funnels information to the FBI and other domestic policing entities, and this has been widely documented [1]. The government even deigned to declassify proceedings from their special secret (!) court that decry the practice where NSA gives illegally-obtained surveillance to the FBI, which then manufactures a reason to go after someone using a technique known as “parallel construction,” concealing the surveillance source(s).
> I don't think many people actually care much about privacy.
People absolutely care about their privacy. If you don't believe me try going outside and following someone in public with a video camera. They'll scream at you about how horrible and illegal what you're doing is. They'll probably call the police on you. Upset as they are, they ignore the fact that they've been being filmed from the moment they stepped outside and have in fact been being extensively tracked and recorded even while they were still inside their homes.
People don't understand the extent that their privacy is being violated. It's mostly out of sight/out of mind. They also don't understand the impact the data they give up has on their daily lives. They aren't allowed to know when or how much that data costs them. The moment they are confronted with the reality of the situation, they suddenly care very much about their privacy. Mostly they feel powerless against the invasion of their privacy.
