A thought about privacy
If you’re not aware, Congress has pretty much removed any right to privacy you might’ve thought you had. And while I think that’s a pretty bad thing, I was never really prepared for one of the easy core arguments against thinking it’s a big deal: “if you haven’t done anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about.” I mean, it just feels instinctively wrong, but I couldn’t think of a good reason why, and I tend to mistrust my own feelings like that, as they might just be bourne of personal bias.
But the other day I had an epiphany, which is that the statement “if you haven’t done anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about” is false. Here’s the correct statement:
If you haven’t done anything that someone else thinks is wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about.
When you work through the implications of that statement, losing your privacy seems like a much more worrying issue.
July 14th, 2008 18:42
I prefer to counter with Rule Number One concerning (what was represented as) American jurisprudence:
“It’s none of your damned business.”
Phone calls? My business. Email? My business. What I get up to in the bedroom, and with whom? My business. I don’t pry into the details of your life, and you will return the courtesy.
You think it actually is your business? Convince a Judge, and get him/her to sign a warrant to that effect. Then we can have the discussion. Until then, “It’s none of your damned business.”
What your parents taught you is correct: Being an invasive, nosy snoop is appallingly bad manners. And anyone who believes otherwise should be ridiculed and shunned out of the room.
July 17th, 2008 15:53
Also: if you haven’t done anything that’s an attractive scapegoat, you’re fine. Looking at porn, for example. Or driving while black. Or asking pointed questions about benighted policies. Or not being a member of The Party.
As long as you plan on doing nothing that ever irks anyone else ever, and you’re willing to update your dress code/behavior/gender/sexual orientation/religious beliefs/political convictions to conform with the latest majority (or in-power minority), you’ll have nothing to worry about.
Oh, and try not to be at the wrong place at the wrong time or circumstantially associated with badness. As long as you do that: nothing to worry about.
July 22nd, 2008 14:32
So, I’m gonna guess that many of the people who decry the loss of freedom of privacy are so self-conscious that they think that any authority given to an opposing political party will be used solely to bash down their enemies?
Has the Republicans EVER read Focault’s Pendulum? I think they should start kos I smell a big ass backlash.
July 22nd, 2008 18:10
Our president can read?
July 23rd, 2008 16:37
Can we revolt now?
July 29th, 2008 11:22
I am a great fan of civil libterties and people’s right to privacy. It has been and always will be the fact that people in power will want to know what you are doing and tell you what to do. They of course, don’t want you to know what they are doing. America still has a lot of freedoms that we take for granted. The big question is where is the line between freedom, tolerance and crossing into one-sided hate? Freedom is always relative to what everybody else has and let you have. Democracy works because all of us (in America at least) collectively agree that we will live next to one another and go looting and pillaging our neighbors every night.
So, Congress is removing some freedoms? Okay, maybe the next President will choose not to enforce them or write his own legislation to change them. Maybe the Court system will get fed up and not enforce them either. In any event, voice your concerns and teach others to voice their concerns as well.
I am all over the place on this post, aren’t I?
Multi-tasking too much,
Kim
July 29th, 2008 11:26
Uh sorry about that: “Democracy works because all of us (in America at least) collectively agree that we will live next to one another and go looting and pillaging our neighbors every night.”
Should have read as:
“Democracy works because all of us (in America at least) collectively agree that we will live next to one another and not go looting and pillaging our neighbors every night.”
Though it is funnier the first way…
July 31st, 2008 14:51
How about now?
July 31st, 2008 22:41
In a supernaturally appropriate vein, my wife was asking me about if we could remove ourselves from google maps. They have sent around in neighborhoods cars that take pictures of your street from street level and put it on the web. It is pretty weird compared to seeing only views from space beforehand and the images were like 10 years old.
The fear is that people might be seen going out of the house and burglars will know (God Knows how) when to strike their homes.
Kim Greenblatt
August 1st, 2008 07:38
I’d say if a van full of cameras is parked outside your house waiting for you to leave…it’s probably not Google.