The whole basis of rights is to protect YOU if THEY are wrong.

http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127...

What if the government mistakenly determines that based on your pattern of activities, you're likely to engage in a criminal act? What if it denies you the right to fly? What if the government thinks your financial transactions look odd—even if you've done nothing wrong—and freezes your accounts? What if the government doesn't protect your information with adequate security, and an identity thief obtains it and uses it to defraud you? Even if you have nothing to hide, the government can cause you a lot of harm.

Cannot upvote enough.

Is there a good book or site with a nice list of scenarios that don't involve an evil government and a heroic anti-conformist fighting the system, that show that a mass surveillance system can do already enough harm because of factors that can be explained by Hanlon's razor alone?

Btw, the freezing of bank accounts happened to me once in Italy, curtesy of my bank and theoir automatic implementations of anti money laundering laws; promptly sorted out after calling in in the bank, but I was actually quite annoyed that I had to let people see me give fail to complete the ATM transaction at a till. Call it first world problem, but I think there should be more transparency with these things, at least they should notify people when they block accounts.

It doesn't matter if you have nothing to hide. Other people do. Many of those people represent you in various official capacities, and you don't want them being coerced. Maybe some of your friends and family members have something to hide.

Also, I find it very difficult to relate to the whole, "I have nothing to hide, so fuck all the other people who do," attitude that many people seem to have.

What you're missing is that people who don't have anything to hide don't want to be forced to adopt hiding practices, even though that might benefit other people. The choice to give away privacy in return for convenience is as much a feature of liberty as the choice to do the opposite, notwithstanding the disutility for a minority that can arise as a result of network effects.

I'm not missing anything. I understand that point entirely:

"Doing X benefits me. Sod everyone else"

I am fully aware of this attitude that many people seem to have.

Seems like lot of people dislike my view of things but each person is entitled to his view. Don't think it deserved so many downvotes. > What if the government mistakenly determines that based on your pattern of activities, you're likely to engage in a criminal act? What if it denies you the right to fly? What if the government thinks your financial transactions look odd—even if you've done nothing wrong—and freezes your accounts? - Being a CS grad student, I can say when people build models for these things - they are uber careful. Again i would term this a pessimistic view of world. They might interrogate you but the chance of this is 1 in million. They will not just cut you out like you describe.

> What if the government doesn't protect your information with adequate security, and an identity thief obtains it and uses it to defraud you? Even if you have nothing to hide, the government can cause you a lot of harm. It comes down to whether you trust your government. The government is here to protect its people, not screw them up.

There are also 100k+ contractors employed by the NSA and other intelligence agencies. Each one knows hundreds of people, a few of whom might be love interests or otherwise. The Snowden documents demonstrated that querying the database, given only a first and last name, requires very few credentials.

Wow, I wish I lived in a world where 'wrong' was well defined and eternally, universally recognised.

But I don't.

Neither do you.

Post your browsing history for the last month / 30 days. I cannot explain why I must have this data, but I must have it. It will keep everyone safe. You have not done anything wrong, that is why you have no reason to not immediately produce said browsing history.