Change my view: If I have nothing to hide, I have nothing to fear.

So while we're on the topic of governments being able to see all of their citizens' online activities, I thought I'd bring this topic up in a sort of experimental reddit-esque "change my view" thread. I'm making this separately to the linked thread because the UK isn't the only country that's recently had something like this proposed - it happened in America over the past couple of years too, and it's more a general point for discussion than it is one which links specifically to a particular event.

Basically I believe that, if I have nothing suspicious or illegal to hide, I have no reason to fear governments or equivalent having the ability to watch my online activity. I realise that this is a flawed viewpoint and that many people adamantly disagree with it, and I am sure that they have good reasons for that. However, I've very rarely seen an actual hard argument of why my thoughts on this topic are flawed, with examples of how governments watching innocent citizens is a real problem. I see "freedom" and "privacy" thrown around a lot, but I don't understand how this infringes upon my freedom as I won't be doing anything I wouldn't be doing anyway (since, as I said before, I have nothing to hide) and I don't think that I'll be investigated for nothing, so I find it unlikely that my privacy will be invaded (and if it was, it'd have no consequence).

So, PC, why should I be concerned about the government being able to monitor my online activity even though I have nothing to hide? Discuss and / or change my view!

Say what you will about Snowden, but this quote in particular resonates a lot with that line of thinking

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comme...left_to_kill_mass_surveillance_under/crglgh2/

If you have nothing to hide, you do have nothing to fear. I agree.

Its really only an invasion of privacy if you dont consent. So you may consent, but your neighbor does not. Im 100% against governments watching online activity, but we do need to get realistic. The government will never set up FEMA camps for regular people or whatever those conspiracy theorists claim.

Even if you trust your government 100% and don't think they would ever manipulate the public's information for sinister reasons, there is still the very, very real reality that many politicians are technologically inept. When, and it's a when, not an if, the data is hacked by a third party, they can potentially gain access to everything related to you: with a list of your history, a potential hacker could exploit poor passwords by crossreferencing with recently leaked passwords (which happen every other day), and in general it just compromises the security of the places you do visit.

I'm alluding here more towards the snooper's charter simply because it's the one I'm the most familiar with, but I'd be curious to see what reasons you think so many departments of government having access to so much personal information would ever be necessary. It's especially worrying when the Data Protection Act literally states that for corporations they must only store private information about their clients that is 100% necessary, and even then it usually has a time limit after which it should be deleted. Why should the double standard exist? What actual benefits are there for the average person to have their information accessible by the government? Surely the government should be serving the people, not the other way around?

There might be many distasteful or uncomfortable things that aren't illegal, that most people would agree might be totally okay within one's private lives, but might be impolite or offensive when made public. The government might use this information to compromise people who oppose them, and this might lead to a chilling effect on government criticism.

It also seems inappropriate that government expects so much information from private citizens for the sake of "safety", while private citizens should be expecting a lot more transparency from the government for the sake of good governance. If they want to know more about me, then I damn sure need to know more about them.

Sure, anyone can take a look at what I am doing in private, so I don't really care about privacy in some sense, but I am against this sort of surveillance for another reason.

It is what it leads to: restriction. When others can see you doing something they don't like, they can stop you from doing it. Hence, invasion of privacy can lead to restriction of freeom, in a way.

Saying you're not afraid of/don't mind having your private life at the fingertips of any curious government official because you have nothing to hide is like saying that you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say, or that you don't care about rights for LGBT people because you're not part of the spectrum. "Oh, I don't care, because it doesn't affect me" is basically what you're saying.

It's not about fear or anything of the sort, it's about having your activities monitored and restricted without due cause. It's about having a modicum of privacy, which should be a basic human right...oh wait, it is. So what, because a small minority might be involved in terrorism or child pornography or various other illegal activities, the rest of us have to suffer our every move being watched? Just because you have nothing to hide, it's OK for your every movement to be subject to scrutiny? Please, explain the logic of that to me, because I genuinely don't see it. Flip it on its head - if you have nothing to hide, should you not be entitled to privacy? If you're a decent, law-abiding citizen, shouldn't your privacy be respected? What possible reason could there be for your private life to be compromised in such a scenario?

But no, silly me. OF COURSE it's OK! I mean hey, it's not like the government might, oh, I don't know, leave our sensitive information on a train somewhere. It's not like their databases can't be hacked by any inspired hacker who then has access to all our sensitive information and will use it for less than honourable reasons. Of course it's totally safe to let them access anything they wish to, even if it doesn't even concern them in any way, shape, or form. Privacy is such an outdated concept, isn't it? There are already plenty of dangers with online information being easily available to people...a government database is just one giant target.

The current state of governments the world over now has me extremely concerned for the future, too. This Snooper's Charter - which blatantly used Brexit as a cover to get passed; I seriously cannot believe in a normal political climate it wouldn't get shouted down - is a fantastic excuse for other, less benevolent governmental systems to pass their own ridiculously extremist Big Brother bills, for example.

Last I checked, we were supposed to be a democratic society, with basic human rights. This changed...when? Because we have nothing to hide so we don't care who goes looking for things?

Loads of really interesting points here which I'll read over properly and respond to when I've got time, but...

Lusamine said:

-snip-

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Hey, so I'm not sure if you misunderstood this thread, but I'm totally aware my view here is flawed and I'm actively looking for convincing arguments to change it. So, chill. I'm not saying I'm absolutely irrefutability correct here so please calm down a bit. Thanks.

Saying you're not afraid of having your private life at the fingertips of any curious government official because you have nothing to hide is like saying that you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.

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You might wanna reference that Snowden quote.

Razor Leaf said:

So while we're on the topic of governments being able to see all of their citizens' online activities, I thought I'd bring this topic up in a sort of experimental reddit-esque "change my view" thread. I'm making this separately to the linked thread because the UK isn't the only country that's recently had something like this proposed - it happened in America over the past couple of years too, and it's more a general point for discussion than it is one which links specifically to a particular event.

Basically I believe that, if I have nothing suspicious or illegal to hide, I have no reason to fear governments or equivalent having the ability to watch my online activity. I realise that this is a flawed viewpoint and that many people adamantly disagree with it, and I am sure that they have good reasons for that. However, I've very rarely seen an actual hard argument of why my thoughts on this topic are flawed, with examples of how governments watching innocent citizens is a real problem. I see "freedom" and "privacy" thrown around a lot, but I don't understand how this infringes upon my freedom as I won't be doing anything I wouldn't be doing anyway (since, as I said before, I have nothing to hide) and I don't think that I'll be investigated for nothing, so I find it unlikely that my privacy will be invaded (and if it was, it'd have no consequence).

So, PC, why should I be concerned about the government being able to monitor my online activity even though I have nothing to hide? Discuss and / or change my view!

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It's not about fear. Not fear from doing wrong anyway.

For one, on a very personal level, I have shared images of myself and have received images of others that are intimate in nature. Whilst I no longer have a lot of them saved, many of them were sent via whatsapp, facebook messenger etc. There's still a copy there, there's still copies on the cloud etc. The Government has virtually no right to view said images. But they almost certainly can.

On a slightly less personal level, they can use the data to highlight "political dissidents". Whilst that might seem like a far-fetched fear for someone in Britain, it really isn't. You only need look at the Labour member purge recently to see how political entities will use social media records to hamper your democratic liberties. If someone as feckless and incompetent as Tom Watson could mastermind a purge without Snooper's charter in place, imagine the damage a person as odious and sisnister as Theresa May could do, especially with a far longer reach than what the PLP had.

Razor Leaf said:

Hey, so I'm not sure if you misunderstood this thread, but I'm totally aware my view here is flawed and I'm actively looking for convincing arguments to change it. So, chill. I'm not saying I'm absolutely irrefutability correct here so please calm down a bit. Thanks.

Also, you might wanna reference that Snowden quote in the start of your post.

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Oh, I wasn't having a go or anything; I got the point of the thread. That would just be my counter-argument if anyone actually came at me with that point in all seriousness. I would say I'm perfectly calm, but in truth the Snooper's Charter has pissed me off immensely and I'm getting a little fed up with the people in power forcing that down our throats and slowly stripping away our human rights one at a time. It wasn't intended to be a personal attack or anything, sorry if it seemed like one >.>

Shh. I expanded on it a little, so it's OK. xD

Honestly, the lack of concern around these things - or perhaps the lack of relevant and complete information - is part of why a lot of people have attitudes like that. An attitude like that just perpetuates abuse of power, though. Let them take away your rights in one corner, and they'll chip away at another corner. By the time you actually DO care, it'll be too late to do anything about it. Maybe it could provide a safe and secure environment in the future, but it certainly wouldn't be a democratic one.

The other thing I'll add is, would you be ok if the Govt. just started poking their heads through the door of your house every time they felt like it? Or if they had staff staring through your windows day in day out? Or what about if the Govt. tapped your phone line? I mean, you have nothing to hide right?

That's kinda my point, most people wouldn't be ok with any of that, especially people who have nothing to hide.

Hands said:

The other thing I'll add is, would you be ok if the Govt. just started poking their heads through the door of your house every time they felt like it? Or if they had staff staring through your windows day in day out? Or what about if the Govt. tapped your phone line? I mean, you have nothing to hide right?

That's kinda my point, most people wouldn't be ok with any of that, especially people who have nothing to hide.

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Exactly. The government doesn't need to be snooping into anyone's business if they don't have probable cause.

There's a reason there's a warrant process that is written as a requirement for searching one's property and that one of the standards for obtaining that warrant is probable cause. Well, nominally, at least.

Remember that if someone in a government doesn't like you or people like you, it's not terribly hard to manipulate popular opinion against you if you're portrayed as some villain that owns something morally reprehensible based on an illegal search someone did of your house that took something that would be totally innocuous in all other circumstances. It's done with substantial regularity in many countries the world over.

I'm going to answer this question with a question and then call it my argument because I'm lazy:

Would you allow your mother to read your internet history?

This opinion personally annoys me whenever I see it used to pardon the activities of the government to do whatever the hell they want. They can't do this in real life without being granted permission to search your home anyway.

Would you just let anyone in your home because they simply said "I'm law enforcement, let me in you house to check your aren't doing anything illegal"? chances are you won't because they won't unless they had evidence against you.

Hypothetically, even if the police or whatever, had the capability to go to every home in the world asking people everyday "Are you doing anything illegal? I will need to check you home first" This would never be allowed in a democratic country as we'd then we'd assuming people are doing illegal things to begin with.

Just because being on the internet and having the capability to track and store information about everyone without permission doesn't make it right. If you can't do this in the real world, why make it an exception to make it OK online?

This notion goes against a fundamental aspect of most modern (western) legal systems, the stance that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. You can't go monitoring people like that because it assumes your populace are committing crimes.

I'd say more but everyone else has already covered all my other beliefs on the issue.

gimmepie said:

This notion goes against a fundamental aspect of most modern (western) legal systems, the stance that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. You can't go monitoring people like that because it assumes your populace are committing crimes.

I'd say more but everyone else has already covered all my other beliefs on the issue.

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Hey, an issue we agree with!

I'd like to add that whatever you (I'm addressing Razor Leaf, as he's the one who asked the question) deem acceptable to browse on the internet will not always be the same as the government's views and policies. In the end, the politicians are the only ones with the power to decide what is legal or not, and entrusting them with the ability to know everything you've researched and looked at online gives them a dangerous amount leverage and influence over their subjects.

So I was just reading this on wikipedia incidentally, but I think it adds a bit to this conversation:

By the 1970s, the Stasi had decided that the methods of overt persecution that had been employed up to that time, such as arrest and torture, were too crude and obvious. It was realised that psychological harassment was far less likely to be recognised for what it was, so its victims, and their supporters, were less likely to be provoked into active resistance, given that they would often not be aware of the source of their problems, or even its exact nature. Zersetzung was designed to side-track and "switch off" perceived enemies so that they would lose the will to continue any "inappropriate" activities.

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…the Stasi often used a method which was really diabolic. It was called Zersetzung, and it's described in another guideline. The word is difficult to translate because it means originally "biodegradation". But actually, it's a quite accurate description. The goal was to destroy secretly the self-confidence of people, for example by damaging their reputation, by organizing failures in their work, and by destroying their personal relationships. Considering this, East Germany was a very modern dictatorship. The Stasi didn't try to arrest every dissident. It preferred to paralyze them, and it could do so because it had access to so much personal information and to so many institutions.

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I think government spying would greatly enable this kind of insidious oppression.