For once, an article that defends privacy while recognizing the non-obviousness of the issue. That makes it unusually convincing, but there is still one part I find weak:
Investigating the nothing-to-hide argument a little more deeply, we find that it looks for a singular and visceral kind of injury. Ironically, this underlying conception of injury is sometimes shared by those advocating for greater privacy protections. For example, the University of South Carolina law professor Ann Bartow argues that in order to have a real resonance, privacy problems must "negatively impact the lives of living, breathing human beings beyond simply provoking feelings of unease." She says that privacy needs more "dead bodies," and that privacy's "lack of blood and death, or at least of broken bones and buckets of money, distances privacy harms from other [types of harm]."
Bartow's objection is actually consistent with the nothing-to-hide argument. Those advancing the nothing-to-hide argument have in mind a particular kind of appalling privacy harm, one in which privacy is violated only when something deeply embarrassing or discrediting is revealed. Like Bartow, proponents of the nothing-to-hide argument demand a dead-bodies type of harm.
Bartow is certainly right that people respond much more strongly to blood and death than to more-abstract concerns. But if this is the standard to recognize a problem, then few privacy problems will be recognized. Privacy is not a horror movie, most privacy problems don't result in dead bodies, and demanding evidence of palpable harms will be difficult in many cases.
The author dismisses the "need for blood" as too extreme, but that is not convincing. For example, consider the most compelling argument in the article, which is that government data collection creates a Kafkaesque world in which the opacity of the procedures renders the individuals powerless:
Government information-gathering programs are problematic even if no information that people want to hide is uncovered. In The Trial, the problem is not inhibited behavior but rather a suffocating powerlessness and vulnerability created by the court system's use of personal data and its denial to the protagonist of any knowledge of or participation in the process. The harms are bureaucratic ones—indifference, error, abuse, frustration, and lack of transparency and accountability.
This is a powerful argument, but it is not going to convince a majority of people unless you can show real harm. Not blood or broken bones, but actual cases where good guys (as perceived by the majority) were harmed by government surveillance, e.g. harassed or put to jail. Why would people feel a "suffocating powerlessness and vulnerability" if the Kafkaesque bureaucracy does not eventually bring actual harm? (The case of Aaron Swartz is not an example: the problem lied with the CFAA rather than government surveillance).
I'm still optimistic: the process will work as usual. Government powers will be abused. There will be scandals. In the long term, laws will be improved and transparency will increase. What reasons do I have to think otherwise?
Investigating the nothing-to-hide argument a little more deeply, we find that it looks for a singular and visceral kind of injury. Ironically, this underlying conception of injury is sometimes shared by those advocating for greater privacy protections. For example, the University of South Carolina law professor Ann Bartow argues that in order to have a real resonance, privacy problems must "negatively impact the lives of living, breathing human beings beyond simply provoking feelings of unease." She says that privacy needs more "dead bodies," and that privacy's "lack of blood and death, or at least of broken bones and buckets of money, distances privacy harms from other [types of harm]."
Bartow's objection is actually consistent with the nothing-to-hide argument. Those advancing the nothing-to-hide argument have in mind a particular kind of appalling privacy harm, one in which privacy is violated only when something deeply embarrassing or discrediting is revealed. Like Bartow, proponents of the nothing-to-hide argument demand a dead-bodies type of harm.
Bartow is certainly right that people respond much more strongly to blood and death than to more-abstract concerns. But if this is the standard to recognize a problem, then few privacy problems will be recognized. Privacy is not a horror movie, most privacy problems don't result in dead bodies, and demanding evidence of palpable harms will be difficult in many cases.
The author dismisses the "need for blood" as too extreme, but that is not convincing. For example, consider the most compelling argument in the article, which is that government data collection creates a Kafkaesque world in which the opacity of the procedures renders the individuals powerless:
Government information-gathering programs are problematic even if no information that people want to hide is uncovered. In The Trial, the problem is not inhibited behavior but rather a suffocating powerlessness and vulnerability created by the court system's use of personal data and its denial to the protagonist of any knowledge of or participation in the process. The harms are bureaucratic ones—indifference, error, abuse, frustration, and lack of transparency and accountability.
This is a powerful argument, but it is not going to convince a majority of people unless you can show real harm. Not blood or broken bones, but actual cases where good guys (as perceived by the majority) were harmed by government surveillance, e.g. harassed or put to jail. Why would people feel a "suffocating powerlessness and vulnerability" if the Kafkaesque bureaucracy does not eventually bring actual harm? (The case of Aaron Swartz is not an example: the problem lied with the CFAA rather than government surveillance).
I'm still optimistic: the process will work as usual. Government powers will be abused. There will be scandals. In the long term, laws will be improved and transparency will increase. What reasons do I have to think otherwise?