Cory Doctorow: Why we should care about privacy

[Newsjock]

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/columns/83635-cory-doctorow-privacy-oversharing-and-government-surveillance.html

... When it comes to government surveillance, politicians are quick to tell us that the innocent need fear nothing from involuntary disclosure. However, it must be remembered that privacy isn’t secrecy. I may know what you do in the toilet, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want to close the door.

There is no doubt that you should be very concerned about government proposals in this regard. There are, in fact, multiple reasons why you should care about your privacy.

You should care about privacy because if the data says you’ve done something wrong, then the person reading the data will interpret everything else you do through that light. You should care about dragnet surveillance because it gives cops bigger haystacks with proportionately fewer needles. What we seek is for the authorities to do their jobs well, not simply suck up all the data they can in the hopes that it will be useful, someday.

You should care about surveillance because you all know people who can be compromised, socially, sexually or health-wise. And finally, you should care about surveillance because once the system for surveillance is built into the networks and the phones, bad guys (or dirty cops) can use it to attack you.

[orpupilofnature57]

1. It should be protected on the premise of, " Why do you NEED to know ? "

Who are you ?, and why are you ?, and remember you are them, to us .

[KoKo]

2. K&R

[7wo7rees]

3. Amazing. I just made this point hours ago.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3442345

Cory and I are like THIS.

[DirkGently]

4. It's not like secret surveillance ever HASN'T been abused.

It wasn't a secret when the Fourth Amendment was proposed either.

We seem to be forgetting that we have these restrictions not because of some paranoid fantasy, but because raids and searches and eavesdropping ARE tools for hurting the citizenry. It's not that secrecy CAN be abused. It's that these forms of secrecy and lack of due process are inherently abusive.

[indepat]

5. Were TPTB's motives pure and bad cops did not exist, any and all erosion of

our 4th Amendment rights would still be rotten to the core. Besides, TPTB's motives are never pure, and our society is eaten up, even rampant with bad cops, due in a large part, to very bad drug laws et al.