Navigating a Web where “nothing to hide” doesn’t help you or democracy be safe
Having nothing to hide is no guarantee of avoiding trouble due to NSA surveillance, which can create an environment of fear, a suppression of cultural creativity, and opportunities for politically targeted suppression, generally degrading democracy. The erosion of privacy can be addressed in a number of ways, including turning the tables on power centers and changing our online behavior. Enforcing openness in government and corporations and using search engines that are more immune to surveillance not only strengthen democracy but reduce social fragmentation. Guidelines for online privacy and alternative search engines are included here.
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A common response to complaints about the erosion of privacy – especially the NSA’s growing surveillance – is that people shouldn’t worry if they have nothing to hide. This might be more true if governments, corporations, and ordinary people always acted in the best interests of everyone else. But often they don’t – and they can cause real damage to innocent people, to whole communities, and even to the earth – like when governments and corporations claim activists who are trying to stop climate change are “terrorists”. Given the scope, complexity, and obscurity of the law, it can be used by unscrupulous people for surprise attacks that overwhelm individuals and silence societies, as delineated in this excellent WIRED article.
The rapid rise of technologies of communication, sharing, networking, and commerce has made privacy increasingly dubious. The increasing customization and convenience of those technologies has made them very seductive, speeding their adoption and their growing potential for abuse. More and more people are voluntarily submitting more and more personal information to hard drives in corporate enclaves and “the cloud”. It is almost like spending money using your credit card: It is much easier to do without thinking – and to spend too much – than when you pay with bills and coins. These are booby traps most people have stumbled into willingly – even eagerly – albeit obliviously.
Loss of privacy evolves from a minor risk and inconvenience into a legitimate public concern when power is involved – power that can wreck people’s lives, manipulate populations, suppress dissent, and control governments. Even when that capability is not being used – and we don’t yet know for sure how much it is being used – creating it leaves tremendous power in the hands of future abusers. History gives us abundant examples of collective insanity, corrupt power elites, shifting political winds, and other conditions that make abuse almost inevitable.
Continue reading “Tom Atlee: Nothing to Hide? NSA Can Still Strip Search You Electronically…”
