Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have 'Nothing to Hide' - <AUTHOR> http://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127461/ <comment><USER3> In this much-discussed subject, I'm surprised that two huge points never arise:

1\. The "if you have nothing to hide..." line is predicated on the _viewer_ having final say about whether something is right/wrong, thus subordinating the subject to the viewer. This is repulsive to the notion of liberty as protected by the American "4th Amendment" right of freedom from governmental inspection without an adjudicated warrant. To wit: it's not that I have something to hide, it's that someone else is going to be obnoxious if they see it.

On a related but semantically distinct note...

2\. Those pushing "if you have nothing to hide..." have suspect & ulterior motives. Their existence (income, job, power, prestige) _depend_ on finding something "wrong". They are, by job description, hostile to me. If they derived nothing from inspecting others, they would not care whether anything was hidden or not. Remember: they seek the power to _punish_ , not just what they find wrong, but what they cannot inspect. Your exposure nets you little, but gains them so much they want to reprimand you for any concealment.

<comment><USER4> I'm actually surprised that the 4th Amendment isn't referenced more frequently in refutation to the asinine "nothing to hide" position.

"Nothing to hide" is thematically similar to the groan-inducing "Do you want the terrorists to win?" arguments against civil liberties, in favor of increased security measures, proferred and popularly supported in the mid-2000s. (Sadly, many of the legacies and artifacts of that position still persist).

The answer to any of these half-baked arguments should always begin with something along the lines of "Because we're better than that." Because we have a constitution that assumes we're good people, and that protects our civil liberties from invasion. Because these things are so fundamental to our nation's purpose that giving them up is much worse than being attacked. Giving them up threatens the very purpose of the country's founding.

Even to entertain these arguments, i.e., by trying to cite examples of areas of privacy or liberty that are negotiable, areas that aren't, and so forth, is to stoop low. It is to lose before the argument has actually begun. It is to accept the faulty premise that privacy is about hiding something -- that it is an active attempt to conceal information from the world. No, privacy isn't the action being taken. _Invasion_ of privacy is the action. Privacy is simply a state of being, and one to which we have an inalienable right.

Privacy isn't something we opt into; it is something we don't even really consider until we are made, or compelled, or asked to opt out. "Nothing to hide" begs the question. It assumes, as a foregone premise, that privacy is an opt-in decision that we consciously undertake in defense of something (and that something is implied to be onerous or illegal). This is just fallacious logic, plain and simple.

It's unfortunate that a right to privacy wasn't inumerated directly in the constitution, but was instead defined indirectly. This is one of those areas where the founders really couldn't have known how far technology would go, and how important something like privacy -- which may have been taken for granted back then -- would become 200+ years later.

<comment><USER5> The bulk of your logic makes sense, besides depending on taking "privacy is an inalienable right" as a premise. However, on a practical level...

      "Because we're better than that"

In order to fight a war[0] from a "better than that" position, you have to have vastly greater power, enough to compensate for the hobbles you put on yourself to remain "better". Otherwise, whoever fights dirtiest wins. When people are trying to kill us, how do we make up for not listening to them, without letting people die?

[0] In a loose sense. Terrorists try to kill us, and the only way to stop them is with force. A lot of the same principles apply.

<comment><USER6> But we do have vastly greater power. Terrorist groups definitely don't have a budget of 680 billion USD[0].

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_S...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#Budget_for_2010)

<comment><USER7> While I agree with the point, raw budget comparisons are not a valid way to make it; terrorists also aren't defending such a big piece of land (and sea), and are more narrowly focused in scope as well.

<comment><USER8> The raw budget comparison is not the end of the United States' military superiority; the US has access to cruise missiles and aircraft targeting systems that allow them to put a precisely-measured dose of explosive through practically any window in the world at a few moments' notice. Meanwhile, the "terrorists" are strapping some fertilizer to a Nokia brick phone and laying it on the side of the road in the hopes that a truck will drive by so they can detonate it. The US so vastly out-matches the people it's fighting right now that they're having to write new strategic doctrine to be able to handle it. Are you really trying to make the argument that we don't have enough leeway to keep some principles in the process of defending ourselves?

<comment><USER7> Of course the raw budget comparison is not the end of the US's military superiority; I said I agreed with the parent's general point: that while additional constraints may make it harder to achieve tactical objectives, we don't have any trouble achieving tactical objectives.

My point was just that the metric being used was irrelevant to the comparison being made.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If someone knows something about you, he gains power over you.

This is the most fundamental reason I have seen yet, reflected (often unconsciously) in our daily lives: We have curtains, we talk _in private_ , we have secrets we only tell to those we trust, have company confidentials, discretion, spokesmen, and don't negotiate our salaries in public.

Why? Because we instinctively try to minimize those who might take advantage over us.

Knowledge can be exploited in so many ways that it is very hard to tell if a certain piece of information is harmless or not. If you're at the mercy of someone else, depending on him not to exploit his knowledge over you, you lose freedom.

Most people at least feel this and therefore - in their social interactions - act accordingly. Interestingly, as soon at no human face is involved, my observation is that these instincts break down. I believe that's the core issue today, where most information isn't collected by some creepy stalker, but by web services, governments and card readers. They seem so detached from a real (potentially threatening) person, that our deeply engrained secrecy patterns fail us.

<comment><USER10> > If someone knows something about you, he gains power over you.

I couldn't agree more. When I graduated from high school, coming from a small town, I wanted to get a college degree. Unfortunately, I had a low self-esteem and many friends and relatives that would belittle me or my goal. I don't know if they were jealous or I was such an underachiever in high school that it was hard for them to believe I could reach my goal. This really undermined my confidence and my ability to study, leading me to drop out more than once. Finally, I stopped hanging around that town, did not tell anyone about my plans except a few people, and cut off the relationships that put me down the most. Then I went back to college and it was a breeze. I'm not totally cynical, but I believe there are a lot of people out there that will use personal information to hurt you, and it's best to minimize what you tell others until you know who you can trust.

<comment><USER11> Surface conformity is one of the best skills you can cultivate. People like few things more than believing, "this person is _just_ like me in all the important ways."the larger the group is, the more important it becomes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In the 1920s being Jewish in Germany was perfectly legal. Not long after it was not.

That's the only example I need to convince me that the government does not need to know everything about who am I and what I do and what I think.

<comment><USER13> I honestly don't know how anyone can, with a straight face, ignore this.

<comment><USER9> Sadly, people do, even here in Germany.

When I use this example to illustrate how an information that was once "clean" can become "dirty", they don't seem to understand. They act like that "incident" is soo far away, some sort of horror story(!) that has nothing to do with today. Everything will stay like it is now.

I guess the idea of something like 1933 happening again is so frightening or detached that they just dismiss it.

EDIT: I should add that people who actually _lived_ in the time of Nazi- Germany might have a very different reaction to jgrahamc's argument. I made my observation above mainly with young people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I am surprised that this subject is so hard to grasp. The core of this issue is not about privacy. The core issue is about giving a small group too much power.

Giving one organization too much power in a society is bad for long term health of that society. If you want your children to grow up in a healthy society it's on your shoulders to fight laws that give organizations too much power.

By giving the government unlimited access to our privacy it gives the government great amounts of power.

Historically when an organization (such as a governments, FBI (J. Edgar Hoover), Churches, etc) have been given large amounts of power it has quickly lead to a spiral of corruption and destruction of morality and societal values.

If some one tells you:

       "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear."

Tell them:

       "I want you to sign over all of your assets to
       a government official of my choice. If you
       trust the government, you've got nothing to fear."

The "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear." statement is analogous to a lover, locking a bomb to your neck and telling you "If you don't plan on hurting me, then you have nothing to fear". The desire for this kind of power over some one is clinically insane. The desire to have this kind of power over our citizens by politicians is just as clinically insane. It will destroy our society.

<comment><USER15> "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." - Lord Acton

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think the simplest argument against people who propose "nothing to hide" is to say, "I have nothing to hide, I just don't trust those morons to keep my data safe and secure."

I used to work in the education sector, and we had access to "anonymised" data. I was able to determine my own National Insurance number using only my address as I'd done an HND a few years before. Basically, anonymising meant removing the first and last name fields only! This was working for a private sector firm that was given the data by the government. I was also on only £10k/year and so presumably a vulnerable target for corruption. And this wasn't even one of the more "secure" datasets we had access to.

How many others are there like me out there with access to your data?

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't like to pick apart articles on a sentence-by-sentence basis, but I have to take issue with this bit:

 _> In Britain, for example, the government has installed millions of public- surveillance cameras in cities and towns, which are watched by officials via closed-circuit television._

"The government"? Very tricksy linguistic sleight of hand makes us sound like an police-state-controlled surveillance society with no privacy and a tyrannical government.

What rot. By far the vast majority of CCTV in the country is owned and operated by private companies on their own private property. This is a huge difference.

 _> In a campaign slogan for the program, the government declares: "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear."_

Come on now. That's almost cartoonish levels of sloppy writing. No such slogan has ever been used by either our government, or, as far as I know, any organisation concerned with security.

<comment><USER18> Fair point w/re to most of the UK's omnipresent CCTV cameras being privately owned:

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1362493/One-CCTV- cam...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1362493/One-CCTV- camera-32-people-Big-Brother-Britain.html)

      The research involved police community support officers
      counting every camera in Cheshire and extrapolating the
      results nationwide to provide a reliable estimate of the
      level of CCTV surveillance in the UK.

      Officers counted 12,333 cameras in the area, according to
      a study published in CCTV Image magazine, the majority of
      which were inside premises, rather than facing public
      street.

      The research also found that most CCTV cameras in the UK
      are likely to be privately owned, with only 504 of
      Cheshire's cameras run by public bodies.

In a county of about a million people, only 500+ of the 12,000+ cameras were owned by a government body.

Of course, one would think that it wouldn't be very difficult for the authorities to obtain footage from privately-owned cameras.

<comment><USER19> The fact that the majority of camera is privately owned is not relevant. The question remains: "Is 500 cameras too many, too little or just about right, for a county of 1 million?". I have no idea, but I don't see why the ratio public/private is important.

<comment><USER20> The public/private aspect is important because the question changed from "Is 12,000 cameras …" to "Is 500 cameras …"

<comment><USER19> The article cited never asked "Is 12,000 ...". They say "Look cameras are not that bad since most are on premise and are privately owned and operated." I find that this comparison is dishonest and is not relevant.

edit: changed "you cite" to "cited", The response is not to the OP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Personally, my fears are not about any current laws, but laws that might be created. I'd much rather for our society to respect privacy in these matters, especially if we have the potential to create laws I'd disagree with.

Also, if people have nothing to hide, let me access their computers for an evening, and also let me send any "proof" of breaking "stupid laws", like watching a dvd on their computer, or accessing a file with unwarranted DMCA takedown notice out for it. There's a lot of potential for innocent people going to jail in a video taped society.

<comment><USER22> Would they go to jail? Police ignore trivial laws like those against jaywalking all the time. I remember as a kid riding back from a Boy Scout event and with a cop driving and him describing which laws every vehicle we passed were breaking. Not that he'd ever pull them over for those normally - unless he had a hunch that they were carrying drugs or something.

If crimes as minor as decrypting a DVD were actually prosecuted then it wouldn't be a lot of people going to jail. It would be everybody. Including all the cops and judges. Which is never going to happen.

The real danger here is selective enforcement of laws, and the selective enforcement of laws. Well, we have the later already (see "Professional Courtesy") but the former gets much more dangerous to the extent that police officers can control which videos do or do not end up at a courtroom. If a lawyer can show that the police are regularly ignoring an offense in other contexts that can be a defense in the US, but in practice the US justice system does a very bad job of getting exculpatory police collected video evidence into the hands of defense lawyers.

<comment><USER23> Just getting sent to court can be a punishment too, though. It makes you waste money hiring a lawyer, or waste time going to court yourself. I got sent for being in a park after dusk the other day, something police never seem to enforce around here, but suddenly started doing in one certain area because there was a shooting a while back. So selective enforcement basically let them nail everyone who spent any time in the park after dusk when they decided it suited them. Maybe not with jail, but at least with court time or lawyer fees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's really very simple. I'm not doing anything "wrong," but I cannot guarantee that my definition of "wrong" is the same as the government's.

Recently I've come across an argument that I think helps reveal the problems to those who are not prone to see them: if you have nothing to hide, would you give a copy of your house key to the police to check on your house whenever they want?

Suddenly everything becomes obvious: the cost of inconvenience (what if I'm asleep?), the cost of potential corruption or incompetence (what if they lose the key?), the cost of potential misinterpretation, etc...

<comment><USER25> Exactly. Translate "doing wrong" to "commiting a crime" and then you end up with a list of hundreds or thousends of criminal laws that you just can't know, each of which is subject to interpretation by individuals with different motivations and attitude towards you, based on potentially incomplete or misleading data etc. etc.

</comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 I've always thought the simplest retort to this argument came from Bruce Schneier:

 _Privacy is important because without it, surveillance information will be abused: to peep, to sell to marketers and to spy on political enemies -- whoever they happen to be at the time.

Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance._

<http://www.schneier.com/essay-114.html>

</comment><comment><USER26> Once i spent a week researching Lotteries on google. Days after, i was getting an almost constant stream of ads for the National Lottery. If anyone were to have used my computer during that time, they might have been puzzled by this and though "Whoah! Is this guy a gambling addict?".

Just imagine if i was researching something slightly more taboo. Someone could easily jump to the wrong conclusions.

I might have nothing to hide, but it certainly isn't right that my information is being used to generate a potentially scandalous false picture of what i might be looking for.

<comment><USER27> That's why information privacy is so important: those ad networks shouldn't be required to expose your browsing history to anyone (especially the government).

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Privacy and democracy are inseparable. [http://51elliot.blogspot.ca/2008/07/your-privacy-is-your- fre...](http://51elliot.blogspot.ca/2008/07/your-privacy-is-your-freedom.html)

"If your private thoughts were broadcast on a television screen above your head for everyone to see, its fair to say we'd all be more careful what we thought about. We would be forced to practice thought control to give others a good impression. Mental self-discipline is great, but this imaginary scenario illustrates a critical point: the absence of privacy has the ability to influence.

Moreover, the one who usurps privacy is the one who wields that influence. And such control at the cost of privacy is the opposite of freedom. Democracy and freedom are upheld by the individual's right to form thought and opinion and to communicate within the haven of privacy."

<comment><USER29> If yours were, perhaps. But if everyone's thoughts were constantly being broadcast, we'd learn to accept that sometimes people think strange thoughts, and that it's silly to care so much about it.

<comment><USER28> That's another way of phrasing the "if you have nothing to hide" argument. A simpler example of the link between privacy and democracy is that voting is private. There's a reason for that.

<comment><USER30> Although using this argument promotes the idea that privacy equals secrecy. Privacy is a lot more than secrecy. You expect in day to day life to be ignored by most people, and certainly are not expecting that your every move is recorded. If you were, and knew about it, your behavior would be affected. That's another dimension of privacy that's not usually discussed, there are more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> On the lack of dead bodies from privacy intrusions; they are there.

Ukrainian peasants were deported and killed for having more property that their neighbor: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekulakization> 14.5 million dead

Central and Eastern European Jews first had their privacy violated before their jobs taken, moved to ghettos then to concentration camps. Imagine having a German last name but a Jewish grandmother, privacy matters. Or imagine if Germany did not have a handgun registry-- then its harder to confiscate guns from Jews, which makes its much more dangerous to herd them into camps.

Privacy loss ends in dead bodies-- but only after its too late to regain.

</comment><comment><USER23> None of his retorts really do much for me. I'm fine with people seeing me naked, seeing my credit bills, querying about relationships, etc.. I do have curtains, but it is just so the neighbors don't get pissed their kids see me walking around naked when it's hot.

There is one thing that convinces me, though. I see lots of companies with data just completely misinterpreting it and screwing people over all the time. For instance, I can open a bunch of tabs in Google Groups from Google Reader with the intent to read them later, and get banned by Google Groups because Google decided in their all knowing wisdom that anyone opening tabs that quick must by a bot who has to be banned. Similarly you see AdSense and PayPal accounts banned all the time when the person is actually innocent.

These draconian policies may be good for the company (since it makes sure the actual fraudsters are banned too) and bad for the innocents caught in the way, but as an innocent who can be caught in the way, it makes sense to give them as little data to make up imagined offenses with as possible. Having Google ban innocents all the time is one thing, but we can't really let the government get away with that. That's what the whole innocent until proven guilty business is about and the show me the corpse/evidence and trial by jury things came about because of.

</comment><comment><USER32> The problem I have with the "nothing to hide" argument is that it is aimed at secrecy and hence invalid. The issue is never about secrecy, it's about privacy, and that's a huge huge difference. "I dont need privacy because I have nothing to hide" doesn't make much sense.

I have long looked for a more crystal clear way of formulating the importance of privacy and why it's different from having something to hide.

<comment><USER10> Great point. When people alter one or two key works, it can shift the whole debate. We need to be aware of that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> That was a torturous, long winded, poorly written article. The author identified early that the retort "If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" was a powerful one. He then reinforced the power of that retort by struggling to rebuke it in this article.

</comment><comment><USER34> Link to the book, was at the bottom of this long article.

[http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/dsolove/Nothing-to- Hide/index...](http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/dsolove/Nothing-to- Hide/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER35> Forgive me for kicking the hornet's nest, but is all this outrage about privacy or about the abuse of government power?

The focus of the article and most of the comments here suggests it's government power. There's hardly a peep about the fact that credit card companies have giant databases filled with information about everything you've ever purchased, which they gladly sell to anyone, that retailers like Target know your daughter is pregnant before you do, or that Google knows so much about your personal emails that you get ads from 1-800-flowers while reading an email about a friend passing away.

Many of the comments here seem to treat privacy as some pure moral good, some innate human right. If that's the case, shouldn't government officials have complete privacy, after all, they're human aren't they? Shouldn't they be allowed to take unlimited amounts of money from unknown people without anyone knowing? Shouldn't they be allowed to make secret laws that are kept private? What about your employees and your co-workers? Shouldn't everything they do at work be completely private?

The obvious answer is no, there are clearly situations where some limitation of privacy is warranted. Society does not function with complete anonymity and it never has. There are reasonable arguments about where that dividing line should be drawn, but surely we can agree that privacy has both and bad, right?

</comment><comment><USER33> What I find most interesting is that few people question why privacy is so important? Children have no sense of it - they have to be socialized to begin to value it. Many smaller societies have no sense of it. Yet a small child and someone from these societies understands immediately if you restrict their ability to move (and thus "freedom") I'm not sure privacy isn't just an extension of shamed based cultural values vs a universal human right like freedom of movement and thought.

<comment><USER36> > Children have no sense of it

I think such naturalistic arguments don't hold up. Children have no sense of many things - they don't see dangers in stepping onto a street without looking, and they don't see dangers in giving up their privacy. If they don't value it, should we not protect their privacy?

Children and some small societies often don't have a strong sense of property rights either - yet would you argue from that that a more complex society still doesn't require property rights?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> A somewhat related video that often gets posted, but is worth posting again: Why you should never talk to the police (even if you have nothing to hide!):

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc>

It includes some stories that illustrate why information about you, even when you have done nothing wrong, can be used against you by authorities, even purely by mistake not accounting to any corruption/bias/pressure-to- catch/punish-somebody, etc.

</comment><comment><USER38> Why are there trade secrets? Why is there classified information? Why is there encryption? Why are there door locks and window blinds and fences? What was the big deal about Wikileaks if you have nothing to hide?

If the US government or some MegaCorp wants to dump all of their correspondence and data, decrypted, onto the internet for my perusal, and unlock all the doors, safes, fences and windows on their buildings, then I might consider opening up my personal life to them as well.

</comment><comment><USER39> It bothers me when people equate the right of privacy (i.e. the right to be let alone) with a perceived right of seclusion (i.e. a perceived right to not be seen/heard/disturbed by others). The disconcerting reality is that privacy is far more encompassing.

Privacy isn't just about freedom from unwanted attention. It's about your right to remain free of unwanted intrusions in your life. Privacy law protects a woman's choice to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, a homosexual male's choice to privately engage in sodomy with the consent of another, and a heterosexual couple's choice concerning the use of contraception for non- procreative sex. Privacy also protects your right to refuse medical attention for yourself and, in some jurisdictions, on behalf of your minor children. It additionally applies to a family's choices in rearing their children: the right to privacy protects a family's choice of religion, meals to eat, whether to participate in religion, etc.

When people claim that they don't mind putatively invidious legislation because they have "nothing to hide," they are doing an enormous disservice to privacy law. They might as well say: "We don't mind the government acting as our (family's) autopilot."

</comment><comment><USER40> I've always liked retort, "If I have nothing to hide, why do you chase me?"

<comment><USER25> Brilliant!

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> 'Nothing to Hide' - many peoples think this way, but for friends i was always trying to explain why privacy is important, why should you use anti virus and firewall, and do not leak data to Internet my main arguments:

1\. You're computer might be in use for spam or hacking banks and governments sites. 2\. Data leak - credit cards, accounts, and main - <USER2> information. 3\. In Ukraine we have joke - Facebook.com - let your wife meet your lovers. 4\. From your info it is possible to find info on your friends.

And this is for people who have nothing to hide.

Questions of privacy in Internet is a big problem. But privacy should be privacy, not anonymity.

As for cameras on streets... In future we will have no chance to hide. Nothing.

</comment><comment><USER27> The "nothing to hide" argument seems to work just like the "God moves in mysterious ways" argument. It's sort of an end-of-the-road conversation- stopper. It's hard to reply to it, therefore the party who said it gets to feel like they're right.

</comment><comment><USER42> Because our interests are not aligned.

Because you have to earn intimacy.

Because my sharing is not reciprocated.

Because I don't trust you.

</comment><comment><USER43> I'm honest, and not a huge fan of clothing, so I ostensibly _do_ have nothing to hide. But there is a difference between being an open book and letting anyone read you at any time for any reason. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear— _if and only if_ no one will abuse your information. Not to mention people just _like_ privacy, and it's a basic right.

If someone were to walk in on me having sex, I might be a bit embarrassed, but not unduly bothered. If a voyeur were to surreptitiously watch me, that'd be a breach of privacy. It's about who's consuming the information, not who's producing it.

</comment><comment><USER44> It seems like whenever people say this they are only considering wiretapping or similar invasions that don't cause them any personal inconvenience. They're not thinking about the TSA, personal searches, searches of their property, confiscation of their property for further investigation, etc.

My response is something like "so you'd be fine with a random mandatory search of your house twice a year, that takes 12 hours, during which all your electronic devices will be confiscated for two weeks of processing?" They'll say "no, that doesn't happen." But it will with their attitude.

</comment><comment><USER45> It depends heavily on the type of information, and how secret it is.

I'd be thrilled to have access to a complete real time data of every financial transaction.

Imagine looking at any object around you, and being able to tell how much each component cost, the source of the component, and the company info that transformed the parts into an object, recursively all the way down to dust.

That would be _amazing_. Even more, that would be enough for me want to make my financial info public to the world, rather than just credit card companies, and everyone that buys that data from them.

</comment><comment><USER46> Plus, how can we ever relent our right to privacy from a government that is content with its own mountains of hidden information. If we are to be wire tapped, photographed and body scanned, then filming of government agents, like the TSA, should be something the government is not only in favor of, but is excited about.

The nothing to hide argument doesn't stand unless every person in the country is constantly surveilled and all information collected is fully accessible to everyone.

</comment><comment><USER47> To me it's seems the real problem we're having with privacy today is there's nothing protecting our privacy beyond a thin layer of legislation. The best real solution I've come across is providing individuals with apps and services that generate fake data about you, masking your real behavior. For example your photo gets tagged at some bar. In response you have a tool able to tag you in 30 other photos supposedly taken at the same time but in different settings.

</comment><comment><USER48> This is the worst argument I've ever seen in response to the "nothing to hide" statement, because it's simply the retort, "Yes, you do."

Can someone give me an argument against "nothing to hide" that doesn't boil down to "yes, you do!"? Honestly, I live somewhere squarely in the middle of the "nothing to hide" camp, and would really like to not be, if at all possible. I just can't justify changing my position on this if I don't know of a valid argument, however.

</comment><comment><USER49> And how is this mass surveilance in US/UK/other "free and democratic" countries different from what was happening in USSR way back? Western propoganda was all over it, but I suspect that it was just a way to hide the real threat (own government). Since USSR ceased to exist few attempts have been made to invent a new threat, but that worked only partially...

The reality is, try as we might, there is no way to regain full privacy. Ever.

</comment><comment><USER50> The Solove/Bartow thing has been bouncing around for a few years now.

One of Bartow's responses: [http://madisonian.net/2011/05/26/of-debunking-and- willful-di...](http://madisonian.net/2011/05/26/of-debunking-and-willful- distortions/)

She seems to be more annoyed with the idea that Solove's writings read like a High School sophomore's rather than the validity of his arguments.

</comment><comment><USER51> I had a friend that had no problems with giving up privacy in regards to his personal communications over the internet, but he would go totally bananas when a hospital asked to hold his ID so he would stick around to give an outpatient their ride home. People are very irrational regarding these matters.

</comment><comment><USER52> I'm almost as scared about privacy breaches in the private sector. I read a while back about Target sending out ads for pregnancy related products to a teenage girl. Their data crunching algorithms had picked up on the fact that she was pregnant before she even told her parents.

</comment><comment><USER53> Any state with national security already understands that we all have something to hide and we do it because it is in our own best interests. The state, after all, does not act in our best interests, but its own. Or to be more precise, the people that run it!

</comment><comment><USER54> One of the best commentaries I've read on this topic, is still:

"THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY." by Warren and Brandeis -- originally published in 1891(!):

      http://www.gutenberg.org/files/37368/37368-h/37368-h.htm

Very well written, and illuminating to this day.

</comment><comment><USER55> There's a huge difference between privacy and secrecy. Any debate about this topic that does not immediately make that distinction is futile. I don't keep secrets from my wife, but I still close the door when I use the washroom.

</comment><comment><USER56> An analogy I always like to use is: would you object to a team visiting your home, searching through all your physical and electronic belongings and then replacing everything exactly as they found it?

</comment><comment><USER57> Oh you have nothing to hide? Well show me your genitals then.

Yeah, that's what I thought.

</comment><comment><USER58> The author's original essay from San Diego Law Review (2007):

<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565>

</comment><comment><USER59> In other news: "Why getting punched in the face matters, even if you heal".

Seriously, out of all of the human emotions, why do we constantly feel the need to justify the desire for privacy?

</comment><comment><USER60> Like Minority Report except instead of three psychics it's a pattern matching computer algorithm running over your data.

</comment><comment><USER61> Privacy is not hiding, it's preventing misuse. There's a reason lottery winners prefer anonymity.

</comment><comment><USER62> The distortion argument is weak; transparency solves it as well as opacity does.

</comment><comment><USER63> "If I have nothing to hide, you've got no reason to look."

</comment><comment><USER64> _'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy_ : <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=0998565>

Has a download link in it to the 28-page essay. Compared to this really turgid article by the same author, the essay is really engrossing. Incidentally, I just finished reading it a few days ago on a privacy paper binge, and I also recommend

 _Broken Promises of Privacy: Responding to the Surprising Failure of Anonymization_ : <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=1450006>

which is an even better paper, although it clocks in at 77 pages. Also free.

Some fun findings:

1\. The combination of ZIP code, birth date (including year), and sex is unique to 87 per cent of Americans. Cross-reference this with voter data, and you're busted.

2\. The information of how and when you rated any three movies on Netflix can identify more than 80 per cent of its users (68% for two movies). Cross- reference this with IMDb database, and you're busted.

It's scary as hell to learn that privacy is an even harder problem to solve, as someone who cares deeply about it. The key take-away from the latter paper is that privacy and utility are mutually exclusive - you can't "anonymize" data. The second is that we have to rethink our concept of personal identifiable information, because _everything_ can be used to whittle down the candidates to a unique person with the right information.

We are so far from implementing useful privacy measures legally and practically that it's ridiculous. We are being embarrassingly myopic by only turning our attention to social networks, when there are privacy vulnerabilities everywhere.

Unless it's biometric data that we can relate to our own body - retina, fingerprint, facial features, DNA, etc. - , there is some psychological mechanism that makes us less averse and sensitive to the collection of data about us. Compare how you feel about the police storing DNA and fingerprints of acquitted suspects to how the NSA is trying to basically data-mine the entire communication infrastructure. That is, when careless companies or witless users don't just hand the information to them directly.

For people who care as much as privacy, as people in technology circles do, we have a really bad habit of focusing our attention narrowly at mainly what Silicon Valley does. But consider the value of something as simple as your zip code, birth date, and sex, and how many sites you might hand out that information to - the last information of which can usually be inferred by the service or commodity you buy, or your name.

</comment><comment><USER65> tldr; anyone?

</comment><comment><USER66> The 'nothing to hide' arguments almost always seem to focus on the individual, but the full power of mass surveillance is not really about the control of specific individuals, but rather about control of the group. Just as in the measurement of temperature, where the motion of individual atoms is unimportant compared to the average, so the information gathered about single people is unimportant compared to the ability to accurately measure the group. If you want to hunt down single actors you do not need cameras everywhere, you just need to infiltrate their social circle. But to influence entire societies and to learn how to steer them is something that requires a ton of hard data on as wide a range of people as possible. Kafka's The Trial might be the perceived effect on the individual, but Asimov's Foundation series would seem the ultimate political aim of these kind of policies.</comment>


Ask HN: Productivity tabs? - <AUTHOR> I've seen a lot of bookmarklets/sites for blocking websites and monitoring time for productivity, but I can't help but think their inefficacy for me is due to treating an issue further down the [cause -> symptom] gradient.
I often find myself hitting the key combination command + t > n > enter instinctually to satisfy something subconscious, where n is the first letter of a url I have yet to block.
Does anyone have a suggestion for a site that could satisfy the craving for that initial dopamine hit, while gently and swiftly bringing focus back in order to return to the task at hand? I'm not quite sure what it would look like or how successful it would be, but I'd love some suggestions to try out! <comment><USER2> Why not just set up your /etc/hosts file to block all the sites that you're addicted to? That's what I do and it's pretty shocking how much I've realized I visit them out of habit.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've definitely tried it. The issue I've encountered is that I substitute it with some other distraction, such as my phone, and it appears to be an endless cat and mouse game. I'd like a solution that satiates the craving, rather than configuring countless locks.

To adhere to the addiction analogy: As a substitute for a cigarette, I'd like a pen to hold, rather than abstinence by throwing the pack in a safe that I know the combination to. Even if I entrusted someone else with the combination, the unfulfilled craving and the knowledge of where to find a fix, have proven difficult to separate.</comment></comment>


Why HTML5 is in trouble on the mobile front - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/why-html5-is-in-trouble-on-the-mobile-front-7000003748/ <comment><USER2> ZDnet is like TMZ or The Sun. Or like The Register :P Clickbait title and ridiculous argument. HTML5 was never made to contest native apps. It was made to simplify the web. To make its old structure more relevant to the current content, hence for example <header>, <nav>, <section> and <article>. And it works. Hell, ZDnet's responsive design is a child of HTML5 and CSS3. So, just keep calm and move along over this piece.</comment>


Workflow Automation for Founders and Consultants – Pareto - <AUTHOR> Hi all - hope everyone's taking care right now!
I'm working on a startup called Pareto (hellopareto.com) that's building workflow automation.
So far, our 100% female-led team has saved 100+ businesses thousands of hours (and counting!) from working on repetitive workflows such as lead generation, market research, and admin operations - while empowering women around the world with virtual work.
We recently launched a referral program, and I wanted to share this opportunity to try our product with the first hour for free! https://hellopareto.com/invite/LaurelPrime
Also, we're trusted by venture communities like Pear, Y Combinator, and Stanford Venture Studio and offer versatile services to founders in their portfolio. If you know of any communities, founders, or spaces that we can be helpful in, please let me know! <comment><USER2> You might try posting with a Show HN title, making the post a URL type, and then make the first comment you longer form text.

If you click the "show" link at the top, you can find examples and which ones did well too. Why seems to be more complicated :]</comment>