ACLU story: "You May Have 'Nothing to Hide' But You Still Have Something to Fear"

[NYC_SKP]

You May Have 'Nothing to Hide' But You Still Have Something to Fear

By Alex Abdo, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project

In the wake of recent news that the NSA is spying on Americans, I have been particularly struck by the argument that "if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear."

At first blush, this argument might seem sound – after all, if the government is merely conducting anti-terrorism surveillance, non-terrorists shouldn't be affected, right? But if you look more closely, you'll see this idea is full of holes.

(snip)

When the government operates in secret, it is hard to know anything with confidence. There is, however, one thing you can say with 100% confidence: we need to know more.

We need to know more about what information the government is collecting about millions of innocent Americans. We need to know more about the secret legal interpretations that the government is relying on to monitor our communications. And we need to know more about what the government does with the trillions of bits of electronic data it is amassing in its files. We need these answers because, even if we have nothing to hide, that does not mean we want to live in a society where nothing is private.

http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/you-may-have-nothing-hide-you-still-have-something-fear

[Gregorian]

1. The big one to me is what if what they collect about you is WRONG.

That article addresses all of the issues I've been trying to convey to the nonbelievers around here.

What if you are mistaken for that guy who is on the most wanted list? What if you are imprisoned when innocent? These are incredibly huge ifs.


And there is no doubt that this spying will curtail our very right to freely assemble. Key word "freely". People won't even consider stepping out of line, which is our Constitutional right.

Damn them. They are OUR servants, and it's OUR government. They seem to have forgotten that in the name of money. After all, this isn't about security. This is about money.

Military spending is just as addictive as heroin. It's time for a war on military spending.

[cantbeserious]

2. + 1,000

eom

[NYC_SKP]

4. You would lose your job, your house, your assets, your sanity.

And would never recover.

[reusrename]

3. Why isn't this technology ever used against real criminals?

It seems that PRISM is only used against political dissidents, not criminals.

That's very much at odds with the law. We could prosecute the war on drugs to a successful victory, for example. Why haven't we?

Oh yeah, what was I thinking? The criminals who run the drug trade also run the NSA. Doh!

There's no way this toothpaste will ever go back in the tube. The only way forward that makes sense now is to make as much of this stuff public as is humanly possible. It should all be in the public domain, and it should all be done using open source software, especially the stuff that is paid for with public funds.

[dickthegrouch]

5. It's so easy to overwhelm the good info with bad

If every person of real interest to the NSA and its hangers-on made 5 phone calls or e-mails a day to complete strangers, the system would be utterly overwhelmed in days.

The NSA has to have far better spam filters than my ISP, otherwise the sheer volume of sex spam would overwhelm the system. And the email accounts that send the spam are extraordinarily short-lived; just as a terrorist would want them to be.

[WillyT]

6. K & R !!!

[NYC_SKP]

7. Thanks, WillyT!

Hi praise!

[WillyT]

8. Anytime...

[shockedcanadian]

9. In general, I trust the U.S system...

See my lengthy post and popular read (going on 4000 views at this point) which I wrote in the "National Security and Defense" section of DU some time ago about the persecution I experienced and still experience in Canada. I have made it my duty to spread the facts of my circumstance Internationally as I have zero recourse in a country like Canada. Which, btw, has our own CIA equivalent operating ONLY against their own citizens (by law). Imagine how Americans would feel dealing with that apparatus? Does it sound democratic to have your own citizens spying on one another for personal wealth, career gain and budget increases?

My story explains the risks of what I would call placing sensitive powers and information into the hands of some who may not concern themselves with the true protection of the state. As a more specific example, if this same NSA program was being run by the NYPD I would absolutely be wary, as I have experienced first hand how vindictive, spiteful and immoral undercover police can be, this from Toronto at that. Police in uniform are an entirely different story altogether; undercovers operate with little oversight and accountability. The NSA at least has to report to the American government. This is vastly different in that respect.

I don't know much about the NSA except that I once read a book about a former Stasi agent, this book was written in the 1990's I believe and he stated hands down at that time that no intelligence agency was most effective at intelligence collection than the NSA, and that was over 20 years ago...and he said it wasn't even close. He said they were so entrenched that every nation on the earth was providing information to them and they didn't even know they were providing such information and a defense was non-existent. Sounds like an agency and capability I want on my side rather than in the hands of the enemy. This is why I cannot support what Snowden did, as it doesn't pass the smell test in my opinion, but who knows for sure? That is a debate for another day.

So, the concept that, "hey, just trust us, we are good people" doesn't fly with me now, it would have 10 years ago but not after experiencing what I experienced in Canada. That being said I have no problem with the possibility that someone might have listened to what I wrote and said at some point in my life...as long as there are responsible people dealing with "truth" and awareness and not b.s, assumption and subjective application. As long as there aren't people out there looking for revenge or to create an enemy for their budgets or some petty revenge for their own illegal acts (something I suggest has happened to me). How can anyone be sure that an agency has the most trustworthy, loyal and honest people in their ranks? That's the most difficult aspect of this argument to overcome. In the end though, would you rather the U.S have the NSA program to protect your country or not? Not an easy question to answer, especially if you are a proponent of minimal government intervention in the mundane lives of its citizens.