If You've Got Nothing To Hide, You've Actually Got Plenty To Hide
from the some-analysis dept
The line "if you've got nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about" is used all too often in defending surveillance overreach. It's been debunked countless times in the past, but with the line being trotted out frequently in response to the NSA revelations, it's time for yet another debunking, and there are two good ones that were recently published. First up, we've got Moxie Marlinspike at Wired, who points out that, you're wrong if you think you've got nothing to hide, because our criminal laws are so crazy, that anyone sifting through your data would likely be able to pin quite a few crimes on you if they just wanted to.Furthermore, he points out, that one of the big reasons why laws are changed is because people realize that the laws don't make sense for the current times -- but that's much more difficult if law enforcement is sniffing through all your data and penalizing you any time they've found you've done something wrong.For instance, did you know that it is a federal crime to be in possession of a lobster under a certain size? It doesn't matter if you bought it at a grocery store, if someone else gave it to you, if it's dead or alive, if you found it after it died of natural causes, or even if you killed it while acting in self defense. You can go to jail because of a lobster.
If the federal government had access to every email you've ever written and every phone call you've ever made, it's almost certain that they could find something you've done which violates a provision in the 27,000 pages of federal statues or 10,000 administrative regulations. You probably do have something to hide, you just don't know it yet.
Imagine if there were an alternate dystopian reality where law enforcement was 100% effective, such that any potential law offenders knew they would be immediately identified, apprehended, and jailed. If perfect law enforcement had been a reality in Minnesota, Colorado, and Washington since their founding in the 1850s, it seems quite unlikely that these recent changes would have ever come to pass. How could people have decided that marijuana should be legal, if nobody had ever used it? How could states decide that same sex marriage should be permitted, if nobody had ever seen or participated in a same sex relationship?Meanwhile, over at Mashable, Julian Sanchez gives a much more direct explanation for why everyone has something to hide:
The cornerstone of liberal democracy is the notion that free speech allows us to create a marketplace of ideas, from which we can use the political process to collectively choose the society we want. Most critiques of this system tend to focus on the ways in which this marketplace of ideas isn’t totally free, such as the ways in which some actors have substantially more influence over what information is distributed than others.
Some of the potentially sensitive facts those records expose becomes obvious after giving it some thought: Who has called a substance abuse counselor, a suicide hotline, a divorce lawyer or an abortion provider? What websites do you read daily? What porn turns you on? What religious and political groups are you a member of?Furthermore, he points out the elitist obnoxiousness of the claim that you shouldn't worry about overly broad surveillance, just because you might not be a target:
Some are less obvious. Because your cellphone's "routing information" typically includes information about the nearest cell tower, those records are also a kind of virtual map showing where you spend your time — and, when aggregated with others, who you like to spend it with.
However, that seems like an awfully narrow way to think about the importance of privacy. Folks don't usually say (aloud, anyway), "I'm white, why should I care about racism?" or, "My political and religious views are too mainstream to ever be restricted, so why should I care about the First Amendment?"So, yes, even if you don't think you have something to hide, you do, and you should be concerned about the basic civil liberties and civil rights of those around you.
We don't say such things not only because we care about other people's rights as well as our own happiness, but also because we understand that we benefit indirectly from living in a certain kind of society. You may not be interested in protesting, criticizing the government or debating fringe political views — but as a citizen of a democracy, subject to the laws the democratic process produces, you're better off in a system where those things are allowed to happen.
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Filed Under: data mininig, nothing to hide, nsa, nsa surveillance
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cluck cluck
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9aqrAngmvE
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Re: NSA Surveillance
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Speeders
If the government has your GPS data then they should have the ability to issue you a ticket. Afterall, if we stop just one accident happening due to speeders it would be worth it.
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BMV
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Re: Speeders
It would also reduce racial/age profiling in the enforcement of speeding laws (a huge problem in some areas)
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Re: Speeders
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Nothing to hide
You don't need anything else to justify a need and, indeed, a right to privacy.
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We are all criminals in one way or another, law enforcement is about selective punishment and we all accept that, we all know that the government can put you "under the microscope", and make your life hell and somehow people accept that, they shouldn't.
Laws should be simple so everybody understands them so everyone can follow them, otherwise we are just creating a mechanism where some will abuse power for their own purposes and desires.
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now look at how things have changed in the USA. look at the road that we're going down. look at how the things held most dear, freedom and privacy, are being taken away, bit by bit, day by day. look at where control of the country and the people is going. towards big corporations to increase their profits while limiting our choice and access! constant surveillance by the NSA or others surely is not what this country is about or what it wants either. we are being made to fear our own government and that cannot be right!!
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example of and thereby deter others.
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Resistance will lead to additional charges and/or life imprisonment and/or death.
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Stop resisting! Stop resisting!
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You don't have anything to hide until you do
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These people had nothing to do with the plot; they were friends, family, neighbors, sympathizers, etc--anyone and everyone who was in any way related to the plotters.
You may have nothing to hide. But that is totally irrevelent when you are living under a corrupt government.
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Famous quotes
At a CNBC interview
Sun on Privacy: 'Get Over It': The chief executive officer of Sun Microsystems said Monday that consumer privacy issues are a "red herring."
"You have zero privacy anyway," Scott McNealy told a group of reporters and analysts Monday night at an event to launch his company's new Jini technology.
"Get over it."
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Re: Famous quotes
If we use Eric Schmidt logic then the only right choice is to not ever do anything and bury your head in the sand because what is ok today will not be ok tomorrow.
When Bush was in power being a right leaning person was great, with Obama in power you get the full wrath of the IRS brought down on you.
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Re: Famous quotes
Considering the existence of secret laws and secret interpretations of public laws ... the above statement implies that Mr Schmidt is ignorant sarcastic or an ass - maybe all three.
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Re: Re: Famous quotes
It was a interesting comment about from the guy running Google.
Silicon Valley CEOs are not necessarily sympathetic to protecting your privacy.
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We live in a Constitutional Republic, not a democracy.
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Nothing to hide, everything to lose
How many criminal cases have been rigged with improvised/false testimony, and years later, the defendant sits in prison pleading for another trial because he's not guilty, but was denied the power to prove it?
How many innocent people are now in prison because information/witnesses/testimony was tainted, forged and ignored by the prosecution?
Then you throw in all this 'metadata' to sweeten the pot.
Giving the cops more ways to screw you into a criminal case before you can say "But I'm innocent!" is one way this information can be used against you without your knowledge.
Everyone's got something to hide.
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Re: Nothing to hide, everything to lose
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and I suspect the NSA have far more than six lines...
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Right, REASON to not let the Google snoop on you!
But specifically for pirates: Google records all your searches and nearly all websites that you visit -- and will know exactly what you've downloaded because Google runs the captcha! Besides that, if you're fool enough to use the services that give it your explicit details, it reads all your emails. -- In short, Google is the all-in-one source that has enough to convict you.
Of course, you'll roll eyes and say that's not going to happen.
But as a practical matter Google is your biggest threat, especially when you believe that it can be trusted.
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Re: Right, REASON to not let the Google snoop on you!
In other words, leave Techdirt and start your own blog.
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Re: Re: Right, REASON to not let the Google snoop on you!
The government is using the same forms of technology that other companies are using. You could choose not to use telephones (esp. mobile phones), etc. Look, the people putting tracking devices in your technology are the techies, not the government. Silicon Valley believes it is a very good thing to be able to keep tabs on everything you do.
As I have said multiple times, all the government needs to do is become a data-buying customer like all the other companies that are sharing and selling data to each other.
The data collection/surveillance isn't going away because that's how lots of tech companies make their money.
The very tools that Silicon Valley has invented to serve itself are the same tools that DC is using. The technology isn't being abused by government until it begins locking up the wrong people. But trying to keep government from using the same tools that private companies are using is trying to put the genie back into the bottle.
As some observers have been pointing out, many companies have been happy to provide data to government. They may not want to say so publicly, but if they are making a profit by serving government, I doubt they really want that opportunity to go away.
And as I hope to illustrate with the quotes I have posted, some of the leaders of Silicon Valley don't give a shit about privacy.
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Older Geezer
Almost enough to make me get rid of my internet connection, and throw away my cell phone.
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Allow me to condense the issue.
Statement: "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got no reason to object to being searched, right?"
Retort: "You could make the same excuse for peeking in on a girl in the shower, slimeball."
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It costs money to keep people in prison. Seems to me that most people aren't at risk of being thrown in jail. Now, of course if you're black or Latino, it's another matter.
U.S. incarceration rates by race | Prison Policy Initiative
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No totalitarian government has even though of this kind of surveillance. I'd bet China is jealous that they hadn't gone this far yet! It's getting to where you have to travel with ID, err, papers comrade.
The effect of terrorism is that the terrorist won. They have conned us into giving up our basic freedoms to protect us from attacks that aren't coming. They won, plain and simple. they scared us a little, and we collapsed. We forked over our freedoms, we ditched any sort of morals we had about torture, and laid down like toothless lions.
Our founders are turning in their graves, the NSA is monitoring them too! :P
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Crying because of effeciencies
Quite simply, all the PRISM really does is use technology to collect and catalog more legal information than generally could be obtained by an agent working alone. It's a use of technology, no different from any other, and the use of such technology in law enforcement is inevitable. What is theoretically public knowledge (essentially anything shared with a third party) can be collected, and with the right technology, it's possible to collect it and index it in a manner that some meaning can be extracted.
It's no different from the basic axiom here that piracy is an inevitable result of technology. If you think that piracy is unstoppable because of technology, you need to accept the idea that PRISM (and other similar programs) are really no different. You may not like their goals or results, but the source is the very same: technology.
Remember, 30 years ago you could copy music to a cassette tape and share it, but the ability to do it at a volume level that really meant anything was limited. Now it is not. Prism is the same thing, while collecting those records and information might have been impossible 30 years ago, today technology allows for it.
All the whining about the 4th amendment doesn't add up to much, mostly because, when applied to each single piece of information, their is no violaiton of the 4th amendment, no different than the theory here that there is no law broken for sending a 0 or a 1 to someone in pirating a file. When you stand back a bit and realize that the 1s and 0s add up to a pirated file, the situation looks different - but you argue routinely that it is not or should not be. Well, when you step back from the fine grain of a single data point, you can't suddenly claim that the 4th amendment is violated because of the volume of non-offending actions.
You don't like it, I get that. Your objections go against you general world view however. If technology allows, where is the problem?
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Re: Crying because of effeciencies
I've been reading TechDirt for about four years now, and I'm at a complete loss as to when this alleged theory was put forth. I certainly don't recall any articles that state as much.
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We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem," he said. "If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable." - Gabe Newell
But I guess you know more about this stuff than Gabe Newell.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Crying because of effeciencies
Nowhere do I claim to know more than Gabe Newell. Why troll me with that? Why not address my point instead? Does your pay depend on trolling people who speak out?
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Your side "speaking out" constitutes no more than "milky milky cluck cluck bawk bawk"s these days. If someone is trolling you, your side deserves it. Richly at that.
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Again, an excellent trolling attempt to kill my point, but you fail. You just don't understand that there is no "your side" just my personal side. As soon as you say that, it's clear that you are a paid troll (not sure who's payroll yet), and your only goal is to derail discussions that your masters don't like.
You are too obvious. Keep it up and you won't get your paycheck anymore.
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It cannot exist in the business world? I guess that explains why no artist makes any money because piracy. Got me there.
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Yeah... if only there were some other model for making money from this stuff. Maybe there's a web site somewhere that discusses that kind of stuff.
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Re: Re: Re: Crying because of effeciencies
Correct, but that's not what you said and not what I objected to. The line I responded to was:
no different than the theory here that there is no law broken for sending a 0 or a 1 to someone in pirating a file.
Id est, the party line to toe here is that piracy is not illegal. I've still never read that one here, and neither have you.
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Re: Crying because of effeciencies
That's a strawman right there. Masnick's position is not "if it's possible, it's okay." His position is piracy is unstoppable so wasting time and money trying to stop it is foolish. While Masnick does seem to believe that piracy is not really harmful, this is not because it's technologically possible to pirate, but because a number of studies appear to show that it's not harmful. You can dispute the validity of those studies if you like but to characterize his position on the issue the way you have is ignorant at best, disingenuous at worst.
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Re: Re: Crying because of effeciencies
It's amazing that you wrote this and didn't get it. It's unstoppable because the technology allows it, pure and simple. Rewind back to the days of vinyl records and such, and the technology didn't allow for piracy in any meaningful way, so it didn't happen. The current scale of piracy (and what makes it "unstoppable" in your words) is the technology.
Technology makes it possible to pirate. Technology makes it possible for the police to gather large amounts of legal data and put them together.
Let's add this in: For all of the kicking and screaming, you do realize that Google knows almost as much about you, and they are a private company, right? Every one of your searches, every page you visit using their browser, their smart phone OS browser, their properties, all of your gmail mail, all of your google plus groups...plus all of that data they cache from other sites... it's all there. Technology allows, and it's all legal. You should worry more about that.
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If you use any company's mobile phone, you are being tracked by someone.
If Google becomes the best place to supply broadband services, will you opt out because it is Google?
As Google maps the world, will you find a way to hide?
And as you use any sort of digital product/service, how do you know that Google isn't getting that information? If Google has the capacity to connect every dot in the world, how to you avoid the company?
As Google sucks up every piece of info in the world that it can suck up, how to you avoid having info about you being added to that database?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crying because of effeciencies
If you want minimal government regulations so that private companies are free to do whatever they want, and if you don't want government to do anything, then what will eventually happen is that "government" will become a private company and also to be free to do whatever it wants.
Whatever activities people don't want government to do, but are okay when private companies do them, then those functions are just taken over by private companies.
If we are okay when private companies attach monitors to everything, and if we are okay when private companies "own" that data and can do whatever they want with it, and if we are okay when private companies either create partnerships or expand their operations so that everything piece of info in the world passes through the same collection point, then we have created a system that functions like a government-run surveillance state, but is "private."
So we just need to call "private" anything that isn't politically popular, and if we get rid of restrictions/regulations on everything that is "private," then "government" surveillance discussions go away.
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Re: Re: Re: Crying because of effeciencies
Yes, that's the point I have wanted to make, too. Why does anyone think that technology created by private companies and available to just about anyone for a price would somehow NOT be used by government?
Let's say some private company invents the ultimate weapon, and sells it. Does anyone realistically think that individuals and companies can purchase this weapon but some governments can not?
If the technology is invented and if it is being sold, it is available for government, too.
These tech companies don't want laws to limit what they create and what they do with it, so why do people think such a free system would at the same time prevent government from purchasing and using this technology?
You can't realistically have a system that is available to everyone and yet off-limits to government. What are you going to do? Create more laws which then require even more government to enforce them?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Crying because of effeciencies
PRISM appears to be a very good tool that collects data from many, many sources, and puts them together and pieces them together based on known factors, to look for patterns, for activities, and such. I don't think of it as any different from noting license plates of passing cars, or your credit card company that keeps an accurate track of every purchase and every location you purchase from, or your bank that knows every ATM machine you have withdrawn from, at what time, etc. They know the information, it's out there, and like it or not you are exposed.
Getting upset because the government does it well seems to be exactly against the very nature of Techdirt's stand on so many things, which is what technology allows and permits.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crying because of effeciencies
Thank you for entirely missing the point. Last time I checked I'm pretty sure Google (or any other private company) could NOT put me in jail.
That is the point.
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I see what your arguments are but I don't think you grasp how foreign signals intelligence has made the leap to domestic signals, records, history and location, past, present and predicted. Conflating this country's constitution with, relatively speaking, business intelligence is confounding at best and willfully ignorant at worst.
Stop pretending what Google has is what the NSA has. It's not the same thing so stop comparing it as if it were.
We have restricted travel (if not restricted then heavily intimidating - I'm just not sure what the difference is).
We have cops heavily armed enforcing non-violent crimes.
We have "looks of contempt" as authorization to beat down children holding puppies.
We have "stop resisting" as an excuse to deliver death.
We have criminal enforcement of capture the video capture.
We have PMIC (prison and military industrial complexes) completely off the ranch.
We have aggressive attempts to "free up" six months or more worth of data collections for the same data mining "privileges" that the NSA now has to be used to investigate infringement and other "it's for the xxxx" crimes.
We, apparently, now have complete city lock down authorization for a guy with a gun on the run.
We have a two(one)-party system that, seemingly, can weather any challenge.
We have a secret court and secret law interpretations.
We have bankers with an all but completely free pass to risk all of our well being. (over and over again)
We have the people's representatives, some of them far, far to comfortable where they are, completely and irrefutably selling out the rights, liberties, security and stability of hundreds of millions of people in our, what was once a model, society.
We have no hemp production (boggles the mind).
And now we have you, anti-privacy apologists.
Terrorism both starts and ends at home. Only this time, it looks like the ends is justifying the means and giving an entirely new meaning to "freedom fighters".
If you have nothing to hide you're wasting your lives.
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We can order the killing of citizens.
We can order targeting of a sovereign country's citizens via unmanned death machines regardless of civilian casualties.
I'm sure I've missed other obvious things but "authorization to deliver death in someone else's country" seemed rather important.
Attempts to arrest the Bin Ladens I get. Special missile deliveries not so much. We're wreaking fucking havoc on the world via IP, Oil and terrorism.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crying because of effeciencies
We can order the killing of citizens.
We can order targeting of a sovereign country's citizens via unmanned death machines regardless of civilian casualties.
I'm sure I've missed other obvious things but "authorization to deliver death in someone else's country" seemed rather important.
Attempts to arrest the Bin Ladens I get. Special missile deliveries not so much. We're wreaking fucking havoc on the world via IP, Oil and terrorism.
There are two different issues: (1) collecting the data and what is done with it and (2) using the data to make wars and put people into prison.
Given that many companies want to continue to collect data and it will be very unlikely the data won't get to governments, trying to control this will be hard.
Therefore, it might make more sense to make sure countries like the US don't fight wars and laws are changed to minimize imprisonment.
All I have been trying to do is suggest that when tech companies themselves want data collecting and analyzing technology, and want the freedom to use it, it will be hard for them to also limit government access to it, particularly if government is one of their customers.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crying because of effeciencies
The anti-privacy apologists are the tech companies like Google. That's what I keep trying to point out. Google doesn't want any laws to get in the way of what it collects and what it does with it.
And if you have private companies wanting complete freedom to monitor people and accumulate data, OF COURSE government has access to it too. Even if government doesn't participate, it can BUY the data. Once the data exists and once there is a market for it, government can get it just like a company participating in the marketplace.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crying because of effeciencies
Personally, I'm of the mind that if we could overcome resistance to a digital bill of rights and craft one that effectively makes the leap from pre-digital texts we take a crucial step towards securing our digital privacy on all fronts (save the NSA). Corporate collections do indeed require some limiting.
Where I think current realizations, revelations and discussions are going astray is that these "corporate records" data do not comprise the totality of NSA data hay. Not by a long shot.(*)
I do also believe that the most critical aspect of all of this is that our foreign policy (the combined overt and covert) is *the* most egregious player in this over-acted drama. Money and control are, after all, very close associates.
(*) It's not classified if I'm just guessing. Go away.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crying because of effeciencies
The reason I keep jumping into these conversations is that I want to suggest an alternative to the Techdirt point of view. I am more concerned about corporate power than government power. I think corporations are collecting far more data than government and will push for far less accountability than government.
My bias is to keep government, but adjust it to best fit the needs of citizens. I support the expanded use of commons, which is a form of government. Not necessarily national government, but a form of government none the less.
I am most wary of concentration of power and I see that happening most with the way corporations are owned and how wealth is accumulated.
If I am going to wave a red flag, it would be the close association between big corporations and big government, and how they operate to serve each other's needs. I think private data collection and government data collection are ultimately so closely linked that it is misleading to suggest government operates independently from tech companies.
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A Reply From Silicon Valley: Apple, Taxes, and Tech Libertarianism : The New Yorker: "The technology industry remains another special interest, as intent as the oil and pharmaceutical sectors on maximizing profits and minimizing its obligation to pay taxes."
Douchebags Like You Are Ruining San Francisco: "Now it’s worse than it was in 2000. Now it’s only about the money. Now the only diversity we have left is ethnic diversity. Everyone is rich and privileged and entitled or hustling as hard as they can to become rich and privileged and entitled. A city once defined by people wanting to change the world is now defined by people who just want to be among the world’s richest. A culture that once understood history and tried to create it now has a memory that’s about 2 fiscal quarters long - and a vision that goes as far out as their funding allows."
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Silicon Valley builds amazing spy tools, is horrified when they’re used for spying | PandoDaily: "The only people who love big data more, and who care about our privacy less, than the NSA are the outraged Libertarians of Silicon Valley."
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Re: Crying because of effeciencies
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Re: Crying because of effeciencies
This is the one kind of attack that the Internet is not really designed well to handle (yet). It has protections against blocking data transfers (say, with cut cables) but not against falsified data(worst case) or data mining. Eventually, the technology to prevent this will have to become almost universal or very illegal. There is no middle ground for a terrorist group that considers themselves the 'good guys' for stopping that one last heretic from communicating 'bad ideas'. I'm going to support encryption end-to-end including the IP address since the opposite seems to be the way the usual suspects are trying to make the situation. People who would push their own mother under a train for a better pay grade.
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Murders still occur despite uncountable movies and tv shows and court tv that shows us daily how the person can be tracked down and singled out. I know that a traffic cop will azp me with a fancy radar gun yet I still speed.
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Sure looks like it.
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Some people should read this...
Not yet translated in english...
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"Stop with those effing drugs. They're making your mind into mush." Jimmy Conway.
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Re:
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Really?
If you want to get technical like that, the same logic would suggest that you are infringing on someone else's right to capture a fully mature lobster at any given time. By having a lobster that is too young, you could be preventing someone from eating a legit/legal sized crustacean... A crime is a crime, because it is wrongfully diminishing someone else's rights...
Speeding... Is denying someone else's right to commute safely past you while you are on the same road...
I weigh in again... I have nothing to hide, and if I do... Hopefully reason will teach me why I should not be breaking the laws to begin with, because most of them are there for good reason... Even if I can commit them in the privacy of my own home.
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Lobster law
Raising cultured lobsters is a $100 million dollar industry in Vietnam (not without its own problems, however)...
And of course, recent events would lead one to think that it could well be that both of these industries will be largely put out of business by culturing lobster cells in large vats (if the combined lobster lobbies don't manage to make it illegal before that industry gets its product on the market).
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Reading this could be a crime...
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Police Allow Women To Poison Off Husbands!
http://wifepoisonedme.wordpress.com/2014/01/17/police-and-hospitals-protect-poisoners-from -prosecution-by-denying-victim-emergency-services-and-cover-up-of-victims-calls-for-help/comment-pag e-1/#comment-155
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