The Right to Internet Privacy

David

Why does internet privacy matter?

Let's say, for example, that the US government had access to all of Facebook for the purpose of helping avert terrorism (Does it? I'm not entirely up to date). While many people seem to have a problem with this, no one has really been able to tell me why this scenario would be so undesirable.

I have heard the power argument, where, were the government to have access to personal information, there would be many ways to abuse of its citizens if the government so desired. I don't think this a particularly sound argument because:
1) The government is supposed to be, to some degree, trustable by a majority of people. That is, the entire basis of democracy. If a reigning party proves untrustworthy, it doesn't get chosen again.
2) In the case that the government is evil and does want to abuse You, it does not need Your Facebook posts to blackmail You. It can just as easily track You down, kidnap Your family, and make Your life hell in any way it might like.
This argument, to me, is akin to arguing that the US should not have an army, FBI, CIA or police forces because in each of those institutions, it receives power, which, if it went evil it could use against You. It seems to me impossible to avoid contradiction in suggesting that the US government should not have access to Facebook information, but that it should have access to a police force.

The other essential part to keep in mind is that government programs that would use data collected on Facebook to counter terrorism would still remain virtually private. The first thing to consider is that any agent reading through Your posts could not give less of a fuck about what Your uncle named his third child or that Your sister came out as gay. Having no connection between watcher and the watchee, should make You feel a lot less stalked. It isn't really significant to me whether a stranger that I never meet knows my deepest darkest secrets, and just as importantly, that isn't significant to a stranger; it is as informative as saying "there is a woman somewhere that secretly hates her husband". It is significant to me if people close to me (or worse, people I regularly interact with that aren't close to me) know my deepest darkest secrets. Further, in any situation where the government did collect data, there is no way in which there would actually be some poor soul at NSA's offices sitting at his cubicle, bored out of his mind, scrolling through pictures of Your great-aunt's birthday bash; there's just way too much data for that. Presumably, a 99.9999% of the posts read would be by computers running through filters and searching for keywords and patterns in identifying networks of people that are associated with or at risk for terrorist behaviors, and then only those that the algorithm deemed suspicious (i.e. not You) would be looked at by an actual human.

What I tend to get from the conversations that I've had is that something just feels icky about the fact that the government could potentially know Your deepest darkest secrets (which of course we would post on Facebook for all those acquaintances that we don't actually know to see in the first place).

All in all, even if the system is completely useless and actually prevents no terror attacks, nor impedes any terrorist activities, I much value a tool for safety over what seems to be a frankly useless protection of information that's already public.

http://7min15sec.blogspot.com/2013/08/why-i-welcome-nsa-reading-my-facebook.html
This articles mirrors many of my views on the subject.

Benkei

Without actionable intelligence a government won't know who to target. Currently the goal is combating terrorism. Once it was socialists and gays. And in Germany it was Jews at some point.

And with Germany we have an interesting example: both Denmark and the Netherlands registered religion before ww2. A Danish civil servant set fire to that register. The Dutch register remained in tact. Now go Google and see how many Jews didn't escape from the Nazis in the Netherlands. That's why you don't hand over tons of information to a government that generally has the monopoly on violence.

BC

An individual's sphere of activity simply can't be as private now as it could be even 30 years ago, unless he lived outside of the technological net: no telephone, no internet, no credit cards, no drivers license, no passport, etc. Most of us actually try fairly hard to live very much within the technological net, and as long as we do that, (or maybe, once we do that) deep privacy largely disappears.

Corporations gather and keep a great deal of information about customers. Credit cards, internet access, telephone calls, library borrowing, and so forth all leave data trails. Data mining sifts the mountain of granular data to find useful facts about each of us. All this is routine. What goes on above and beyond "routine" is more sifting and more correlation, plus more organized searching for specific data about specific people. Corporations are already doing what we fear the government might do.

I don't like it, but that seems to be the way it is.

BC

↪Benkei

It wasn't only that they had sensitive census information, but the Holorith [IBM] punched card readers were able to assemble address lists (of Jews) quickly. It isn't just that we share more information now than we once would have, the equipment on which we share it distributes it way beyond our control.

David

Once it was socialists and gays. And in Germany it was Jews at some point. — Benkei

It's a good point, but then again, the Germans didn't have Facebook and they were almost completely successful with technology from 70 years ago...Maybe it's a logical fallacy because I'm sure it would save lives if the government wanted to target people that we think it shouldn't if they had less information, but again this is boils down to another dimension of giving the government power. In an ideal world, yes, government would be enough so that it would only provide services that keep the world running like it should, and wouldn't have the power to kill immense numbers of people. As it is, though, I do think, given how good we've gotten at killing each other, that the US government wouldn't have too much trouble killing every jew in the world without Facebook. Also, in the case of such a douchebag government, it's almost inconceivable that they would not threaten anyone who got in their way and immediately acquire all of the information on Facebook anyways.

The real danger of the situations you presented is not in the power of the government; it is in ideologies that enable those dangers (which is, I gather, why many people are frightened by Donald Trump). No matter how much or how little power you give a government, if it has bigoted, racist or genocidal ideologies it will find a way to carry them out. You only have to look at the fairly weak nations (I'm thinking Latin America, specifically the Dominican Republic, where I live, but there are others such as Pol Pot) where some of the worst dictators known took power and committed some of the most atrocious acts that people can. Yes, if they had had more power, as Russia and Germany, for example, did, then there atrocities would be more comparable to Hitler and Stalin. But suggesting that a nation not be as strong as it could be for fear of what it may do if it turned evil when there are other nations promising to do evil (in this case, I'm thinking ISIS) in a degree proportional to that nation's weakness seems like bad bet.

Still, a good argument and worth considering, though. A couple of times I had to check myself to avoid stating contradictions.

m-theory

The right to privacy is a basic right.

It is important that we can express ourselves without fear that the information will be used against us. Everybody values privacy. For example, if you do not value your privacy, then why not share your logon name and password with us here? If you choose not to then it is because you realize that this private information can be abused and used in ways that you do not intend. The same is true of the government: they can abuse their power to our private information and use it in ways that are not intended.

I would be inclined to agree with your point more if the government was forthright with how they gather and use information and if there is was any evidence that doing so actually prevents attacks. However there is no evidence that wide-scale information gathering aids in the prevention of terrorist attacks. By keeping the way these programs work a secret the agencies can effectively prevent oversight of their operations. That removes such operations from the sphere of democracy and increases the risk that such programs can be abused for the purpose of oppression.

It is not just the government that invades privacy. Many major internet companies cooperate both willingly and unwilling with government agencies by force of laws formed in secret courts.

It is important that the internet is not controlled by the government because ideally it should be owned by the public to promote the free exchange of ideas, even if those ideas are critical of the state agenda.

If we continue to allow the government to operate without oversight with such programs there is the risk that they will begin to censor the internet in accordance with their own agenda rather than in accordance with the will of the people and the ideals of the free exchange of ideas and information and also there is the risk that the power to access personal information without oversight will become a tool to oppress dissent of the government.

I believe it is the public that should decide what constitutes terrorist activity...not an unregulated arm of the government.

m-theory

↪Benkei

Benkei

I couldn't have said it better myself m-theory and thank you for sharing that link.

BC

and if there is was any evidence that doing so actually prevents attacks — m-theory

"The Government" (whichever one we might be suspicious of) is probably not collecting enough information to stop attacks, or for other more nefarious purposes. Or, they are collecting the wrong information. 99.999% of the content on Facebook is rubbish, as far as preventing attacks goes. It's just irrelevant. Electronic systems aren't intelligent enough to pick out the most suggestive posts.

It still takes human agents to detect the early signs of dissent, terrorist leanings, subversive-tending thoughts, deviance, and so forth. The Gestapo controlled the Germans with a fine net of observers/informers--snoopy, loyal people with eyes and ears. Computers can't compete in this activity.

I believe it is the public that should decide what constitutes terrorist activity...not an unregulated arm of the government. — m-theory

That might not be such a nice idea, and how does one actuate the public to perform this function, without that function being worse than government spying? Which is worse: having a trained, supervised, and paid spy reporting on you or having the vindictive old hag who lives on the corner sending in regular reports?

I have mixed views on this. On the one hand, the obnoxious rigamarole conducted at airports seems just plain stupid. "Homeland Security" is becoming an increasingly negative term to my ears. On the other hand, the Bastille Day plow-through truck killing in Nice, the Pulse massacre, the Bataclan and Charlie Hebdo attacks, subway attacks, and so forth, reveal that there are agents who are ready to conspire and perform unfocused trust-destroying violence.

I'm pessimistic that we will be able to selectively and positively identify those bad actors ahead of time.

Hanover

The right to privacy obviously does not extend to public information. If you decide to publish personal information about yourself on the internet, on a billboard, in a local newspaper, or wherever, you can hardly complain when someone reads it and uses the information for their personal purposes.

David

The right to privacy is a basic right. — m-theory

Could You elaborate on this? Is it a nice, rhetorical statement, or is it actually basic and fundamental? What I mean is that the very sane arguments You provided were about the ways in which access to such information could enable the government to attack other rights, namely the freedom of speech and freedom from harassment. Were You implying a philosophical perspective from which privacy is deemed a basic right rather than a way of protecting other rights? I'd love to hear more about it.

For example, if you do not value your privacy, then why not share your logon name and password with us here? If you choose not to then it is because you realize that this private information can be abused and used in ways that you do not intend. — m-theory

Are You referring to my log-on for Facebook or for TPF? If it's for Facebook, then it is entirely because I don't have the trust that if I do my page will remain the same as before I left it. That is, if a friend of mine were to log into my Facebook, they'd probably post something dumb such as "I like poop". Likewise, You would have access to other information that could prove a threat to my safety–things like what people matter to me and where I live (any powerful government can very quickly figure out those things without my knowledge of my Facebook). But if You could see everything that I post and everything that I see on my Facebook wall, I really would not care, and I do have some kind of a weak connection with You since we're having a discussion (which makes You closer to me than some cubicle NSA agent). Differently I wouldn't share my TPF information with You because You could use it to gain access to my email (I do make the mistake of sometimes repeating passwords) account and perhaps get into my credit card or abuse me in some other way. Incidentally, I've never had a password on my phone until I recently got a banking app. Also, if You notice the way quotes and italics are done on this website, in a way, I have given You my log-on info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jKylhJtPmI

If we continue to allow the government to operate without oversight with such programs there is the risk that they will begin to censor the internet in accordance with their own agenda rather than in accordance with the will of the people and the ideals of the free exchange of ideas and information and also there is the risk that the power to access personal information without oversight will become a tool to oppress dissent of the government. — m-theory

I absolutely agree. I think that the actions of government agencies should be deeply more transparent. To a degree, I understand the need of keeping certain information confidential– information that could facilitate people intending to do harm. But generally, I think that branches of government, including the NSA, the CIA and the FBI should be more public precisely to avoid the abuses You mention. To be honest, in the present age, with the most effective form of data collection being digital, I think that this cloak and dagger non-sense is not very useful; ultimately, the power of Your information depends on the strength of Your hackers (and the weakness of others' security).

I believe it is the public that should decide what constitutes terrorist activity...not an unregulated arm of the government. — m-theory

Maybe that's a pretty though, but it's almost impossible to apply on a practical level. Are we to vote on every choice that a government spying agency makes? I do agree that there should be immensely more transparency and that these government agencies should have more to answer about, but even the public won't always opt for freedom of expression. If it were the 50s, popular vote would probably determine that supporting socialist theories, even if passively, might constitute an act of terrorism. Likewise, today, with the immense power idiocy we have on our hands, it is not entirely unlikely that we might see popular decision suggesting that belief in or susceptibility to Muslim ideas might be acts or indicators of acts of terrorism (but maybe that's more about the folly of democracy, a theory created by intellectuals for non-intellectuals).

On the one hand, the obnoxious rigamarole conducted at airports seems just plain stupid. — Bitter Crank

Airport security is a useless waste of time with only one function: placebo.

David

Also, as Hanover stated, everyone that uses Facebook knows that the information is accessible (although not everyone is aware of the specificity of that statement). The whole idea of having a wall to post on mirrors is analogous to the literal posting of information on a wall, the only difference being that FB has an ability to quickly and easily build in responses and that those reading a physical wall are determined by spatial proximity whereas virtual walls are dependent on social proximity. In that way, it is obviously public, in a limited way. Hang up a poster in Santo Domingo and You can expect that it won't be viewed by people living in Tokyo– that doesn't mean that it is impossible for a tourist or traveling businessman to see it, though.

zookeeper

Since the old forum is apparently not going to recover, I suppose I have to migrate here...

As someone who doesn't in principle recognize the notion of "rights" at all (I usually support them on practical grounds, of course), my line of thinking is roughly along these lines (although I think I'm stuck on one train of thought right now and might be forgetting other approaches):

Yes, no one cares about what websites I visit or what I talk about on the phone, because I'm no one. That doesn't mean I never become, either because of my own actions or simply due to association or chance, a person of interest that could have the collected data used against me unjustly. Most people break some laws constantly, and privately say things that would have massive repercussions if they said them in public. If you have enough surveillance data, there's a good chance that you can paint almost anyone as suspicious or dangerous or discredit them in the public eye.

Basically, with pervasive mass surveillance you'll have some kind of dirt on everyone, and almost anyone can be charged for something. If the surveillant wants to put someone in trouble or blackmail them, they can. Of course actors with little accountability can simply have people snatched from the street, shipped to a secret prison to be tortured and basically refuse any due process, but that's a method with different aims and different thresholds. You can't just disappear a known public figure for instance and not run the risk of the whole thing massively blowing up in your face, but having them arrested on seemingly plausible grounds and leaking their deepest darkest secrets to ruin their career and credibility? Seems a lot safer, and thus the threshold will be much lower.

You also can't discount plain stupidity and incompetence. There's a lot more room for false positives when you have a system that's trying to find something suspicious in anything and everything you say, write or look at. And even if we assume competence, if you look at the sort of nefarious crap intelligence agencies have been pulling for a long time it seems clear that organizations like that, as they exist today, cannot be trusted to behave.

I don't care if some guy in a cubicle sees my private data, it wouldn't even feel icky if I could trust that that's as far as it will go. But what we're talking about is more like the data getting secretly stored indefinitely to be used by anyone who happens to gain access to it, however far in the unforeseeable future in unforeseeable circumstances. That's icky.

You might say that that doesn't mean there's anything inherently wrong with surveillance and that we should just elect representatives who would make sure it's not abused, but my response to that is simply that that's backwards and that mass surveillance should obviously only be instituted once the safeguards are in place.

P.S. No one cares if the CIA looks at public FB or similar. People only object to mass surveillance of private communications.

m-theory

↪Bitter Crank

Fair points bitter.
The NSA works with private companies and they collect quite a bit of data together.
What I would like to see is more transparency in how that data is collected to insure rights are not being violated.

By public I meant a court of law with due process intact.

m-theory

↪David

Could You elaborate on this? Is it a nice, rhetorical statement, or is it actually basic and fundamental? What I mean is that the very sane arguments You provided were about the ways in which access to such information could enable the government to attack other rights, namely the freedom of speech and freedom from harassment. Were You implying a philosophical perspective from which privacy is deemed a basic right rather than a way of protecting other rights? I'd love to hear more about it.

I am talking about illegal search and seizure.
Individuals are owed due processes.
The right to privacy is not rhetorical it is a legal right.
And that is exactly part of my concern with unregulated government internet programs.
We cannot be sure that other rights like the right to freedom of speech and freedom of the press are not in danger of becoming violated or tampered with.

Are You referring to my log-on for Facebook or for TPF?...

I am making a point...you do value your private information.
Again the reason you are unwilling to share that information is because you realize it could be potentionally abused and used in ways that do not intend.
I simply make the same argument about the NSA.
These people are human and fallible the potential for them to abuse their power is there and they should not be able to operate without regulation.

Maybe that's a pretty thought, but it's almost impossible to apply on a practical level. Are we to vote on every choice that a government spying agency makes? I do agree that there should be immensely more transparency and that these government agencies should have more to answer about, but even the public won't always opt for freedom of expression. If it were the 50s, popular vote would probably determine that supporting socialist theories, even if passively, might constitute an act of terrorism. Likewise, today, with the immense power idiocy we have on our hands, it is not entirely unlikely that we might see popular decision suggesting that belief in or susceptibility to Muslim ideas might be acts or indicators of acts of terrorism (but maybe that's more about the folly of democracy, a theory created by intellectuals for non-intellectuals).

What I mean by this is we should be respecting due process and insuring that the accused have a trail in the court of law.
And that citizens should be voting on how to regulate these programs rather than secret courts.

David

↪zookeeper

All great points. Especially:

but my response to that is simply that that's backwards and that mass surveillance should obviously only be instituted once the safeguards are in place. — zookeeper

Now that You mention it, I absolutely agree. I am not critical of some abstract government having personal information on me; I am critical of the particular US government at this moment having it.

↪m-theory

Given, Your clarifications and some rethinking, I think we're entirely on the same page.

Hanover

Corporations gather and keep a great deal of information about customers. — Bitter Crank

And since you know this, it's obviously prudent to limit your public behavior (which includes your internet behavior) to only what you wish others to see.

I'd also point out the competing "right" of others to live in the public arena and to see and hear all that goes on in the world. That is, if you decide to finally publish your nude selfies to the eager public, don't I have some right to look at them, print them out, and store them beneath my mattress?

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