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The Privacy Illusion
LoLobey writes "Scott Adams has an entertaining entry on his Dilbert Blog about the perception of privacy. He writes, 'It has come to my attention that many of my readers in the United States believe they have the right to privacy because of something in the Constitution. That is an unsupportable view. A more accurate view is that the government divides the details of your life into two categories: 1. Stuff they don't care about. 2. Stuff they can find out if they have a reason.' His post is written in response to some reader comments on another entry about privacy guardians and how swell life would be if we voluntarily gave up certain personal info."
is freedom and to be let alone, to live without fear. That is what is scary about a government that knows (or can if it wants to) every detail down to what color rash you had when you were in college. But Scott Adams is right, nobody has such a right, but it's something that is worth fighting for nonetheless.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
At the heart of the Constitution is the notion that the powers are government are derived from the people. That is to say, the government can only do what the people consent to allowing it to do. The document makes various references to this principle, some direct, others inferred. The Declaration of Independence was quite a bit more blunt on the topic. That said, the truth is... we're not all equal. Some people have more influence than others. Others have more money. And while we are afforded the right to vote, it's almost always voting who will represent us. We have no significant control over our government; Which was deliberate. The same people who said powers not expressly enumerated in the Constitution are reserved for the people also wrote in the so-called elasticity clause and created the electoral college.
So when people say there's no right to privacy in the Constitution, they're right and they're wrong... as is the other camp. The truth is, human rights are not derived from any legal instrument. They have always flowed from the same source -- a willingness to fight against their removal.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I'm just glad the submitter reminded me to give The Einstein Intersection another read.
The first block of ammendments to the US constitution called the Bill of Rights is just an enumeration of the more abused natural human rights in the time of the US Revolutionary War until it's passage.
The Bill of Rights was mostly opposed at the time by those who feared that unenumerated natural rights would later be denied.
Privacy is a natural human right that must be defended by the courts and populace even if it didn't end up in the rights sampler called the Bill of Rights.
The US constitution only enumerates and codifies protections against the federal and sometimes lower levels of government, natural human rights also include protections against other people and corporations, hence for example laws against murder and stealing but even in their absence the ability to make common law accusation if breached.
Scott says "It isn't a real risk to law-abiding citizens;"
In other words, the old defense of privacy invader.
"If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to worry about."
That doesn't wash with me.
What if I want to hide the fact that I have nothing to hide?
> Your government doesn't know who you are having sex with I know who slashdotters have sex with. Yeah, it's sad, I know ;_;
He's got a point not to believe in privacy anymore, but that doesn't mean we should willingly give up the last shreds of what's left it.
In fact, it's going to be quite a struggle to get back some of that privacy.
Be hard to track.
Face recognition isn't as good (yet) as they want you to believe, so avoiding the car whenever possible is a good start. Empty out your account as soon as salary is in, pay everything in cash. Be debt-free. Grow your own food. And a few more of such old-fashioned values which simply work for living a free life. Quit on that mobile phone. Go offline.
Okay, so I'm living in a fantasy. Problem is that just because it's so easy to track people now, the government thinks it's OK to do so. It's not.
I order my own blood tests and my own (unscheduled) medication from abroad. For Privacy of course.
While somewhat off-topic it puzzles me why these questions about privacy deal mainly with the government abuse of power (in the US at least). Living in a "socialist" country in the Northern Europe I can honestly say that I feel the government is protecting my privacy against companies and other private entities that might try to abuse this information about me rather than it being the big threat. While certainly not perfect or run by perfect people at least in theory the government represents the people for the people and is regulated by the people themselves while the private entities serve only the interests of a few and are in fact required to try to "maximize the profits for their owners" and thus to abuse their power to the full extent they can within the law (or slightly outside, which they can try to influence).
I am aware of the differences in the history, the fact that government used to be about the only entity with enough resources (but would claim this is not even close to being the case now) nor am I saying the government should be given free hands to do whatever.
But there seems to be such a difference in the standard mindset I would be interested in hearing some explanation for this.
... because he watches me at work and puts everything in his cartoons !
And he gets rich doing it as well - no justice and no privacy
I love how we are anon on this stuff.. speaking of which how does occupy and anon and the ability to communicate and know in seconds what is going on around the world do to the privacy of said government? I would say the Governement has even greater privacy to loose. They are people after all. They do bad things and we know of them swiftly, we have banks of data on the web of what they do, what they vote on in congress, and who they hang with. how they pay or not pay their taxes. These things are not in a bubble. We can use the same tech against them. So privacy may be dead for us, but also for them. They can no longer be cloak and dagger. The camera is pointed at them, and the microphone is listening. They can't escape the spider webs, just like we can't. So now we expect them to screw up and try to make us less free. The next step is to decide what our actions are to their bad doings. Occupy has shown they are force for good and help in the hurrican Sandy, what happens when the police try to throw them out of wallstreet or main street again? What are the people of NY going to say when they see the people who helped them when they were stuck in the water, hungry or homeless and scared?
Scott Adams compares our loss of privacy to the domestication of dogs. That is unsupportable nonsense.
According to Wikipedia, the current lineage of domesticated dogs diverged approximately 15,000 years ago. Our current American situation of lost privacy depends greatly on the electronic digital computer, which is around 75 years old. Therefore, Scott Adams was exaggerating by a factor of 200, and - more relevant - a difference of 14,925 years.
The pervasive surveillance society, including facial recognition and the networking of ubiquitous video cameras, is being implemented at present. Today is much more recent than 15,000 years ago -- 15,000 years more recent, in fact.
By suggesting that a national debate on our right to privacy is somehow not timely, and implying that we should instead accept that we have never had privacy, Scott Adams has deeply disappointed me. I really thought he was more intelligent than this, because his cartoon routinely makes fun of certain types of people for their stupidity. I figured that meant he was smart.
The appropriate time to have a national conversation about our rights to privacy and to be "secure in our persons" is now. Today.
The government has just officially confirmed what we've long suspected: there are secret Justice Department opinions about the Patriot Act's Section 215, which allows the government to get secret orders from a special surveillance court (the FISA Court) requiring Internet service providers and other companies to turn over "any tangible things." Just exactly what the government thinks that phrase means remains to be seen, but there are indications that their take on it is very broad.
Late last night we received the first batch of documents from the government in response to our Freedom of Information Act request for any files on its legal interpretation of Section 215. The release coincided with the latest in a string of strong warnings from two senators about how the government has secretly interpreted the law. According to them both, the interpretation would shock not just ordinary Americans, but even their fellow lawmakers not on the intelligence committees.
Although we're still reviewing the documents, we're not holding our breath for any meaningful explanation from the government about its secret take on the Patriot Act. We do know now that there are two memos from the Office of Legal Counsel (the same Justice Department group that issued the torture memos) relating to Section 215. But as has become a routine practice for the Justice Department, the OLC is keeping those memos entirely secret.
This secrecy is overbroad and unnecessary. Americans have a right to know how their government is interpreting public laws, especially when those laws give the government sweeping authority to collect more and more of our personal and private information.
http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/government-confirms-it-has-secret-interpretation-patriot-act-spy-powers
What I hate about these articles that say there is no right to privacy in the Constitution is that they completely forget about the existence of the Ninth Amendment:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
What that amendment means is that "just because we did not list that right here, does not mean it does not exist as a right. There are many rights we did not list here, and this amendment is intended to protect them as well as those we did list already". And yes, it is very broad. It is supposed to be broad because it is supposed to be a check on government power and a protection of the publics general rights. The Tenth Amendment is written along a similar line. Both are intended to say "any power or right we did not explicitly give to the federal government, we give to the people and the states". They are supposed to be very very broad because they are supposed to have a very broad interpretation in order to protect personal freedom and the autonomy of the states. And I think a right to privacy easily passes the test for inclusion under the Ninth Amendment.
I disagree with anyone who says that the Constitution contains no right to privacy. It contains one, by virtue of the Ninth Amendment, by not explicitly denying it.
"I would counter by noting that any argument that uses a Hitler analogy is self-refuting."
This is stated as though it is a truism when it is not, his argument at this point can be summed up as "once we ignore some of the best reasons to be in favor of privacy, there's no real reason to want privacy".
The basic premise of his post is "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" - a pretty weak argument.
Scott Adams is trolling. Not for the first time.
Something he doesn't seem to worry about is that government (or large organizations) have a lot more power than ever to process information "they don't care about", to get information that they do. And use it.
For instance, by itself, it's very uninteresting for government to know that I read Dilbert. But if it knows of my Dilbert reading habits, it can correlate that information with other things about me. Maybe they can even draw causal inferences, like that people tend to change their political attitudes ever so slightly after reading Dilbert for years. With enough data and processing power, that's feasible.
The government can then decide to do something about Scott Adams. Not murder him, that's overkill. But maybe give him some personal problems, so that he becomes less influential. Or manipulating his attitudes, so that his role as an opinion-shaper becomes more to their liking. Again, with enough data and processing power, they can probably figure out an effective, non-violent way of changing Adams' behavior.
This wouldn't be cost-effective, you may say. I say it might well be. Influencing a lot of people ever so slightly is really a very powerful thing to be able to. Most governments though history would have leaped at the opportunity to have this level of control, in a non-intrusive manner - compared to the clumsy heavyhandedness of harassment and ruling through fear, it's both less risky and potentially more profitable (given enough data and processing power).
I think it's not feasible to keep processing power and data out of the government/big organizations' hands. Data is just too flightly - if it doesn't actually want to be free, at least it's very hard to contain. But we can get this flightly quality of information to work for us, rather than against us, by demanding radical transparency, and taking it if we don't get it (see Wikileaks).
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
The bill of rights is not an enumeration of your rights, it's a list of rights the government is forbidden to take away. It doesn't matter if a right to privacy is explicitly defined, your default state as a US citizen is free.
For a highly influential comic artist, you would think he would lay low for fear of ruining his credibility with expressed opinions.
His argument as far as I can tell is the war for privacy is already lost because the government knows your hair color, so you might as well let them install a CCTV camera over your bed and film you fucking.
Or something. His point is moderately unintelligible, but it sounds like the musings of someone who is completely mystified by the motivations of those who fight for individual liberty.
Shame, I'm a fan of the comic.
The problem with Mr. Adams' thoughts is they don't account for all the information the government is learning about you without a warrant, and how much that is on the increase...
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a12
The 'inside joke' at Rapiscan Systems, the company I used to work for, was..
"We scan you so we can rape you," (hence the name Rape-e-Scan)
The scanners are ACTUALLY holographic Three-dimensional full body scanners.
The premise sold to the US government was simple: This will reduce magnitude of the human trafficking problem, which is a HUGE issue around the world. That, and the amount of deaths occurring due to the issue. Just select your favorite movie star, your next door neighbor, that girl from your childhood dreams, and boom, the rich get a full contact reprogrammed you who's going to do exactly as demanded. Politicians needless to say jumped on this one like flies on turd.
This isn't Total Recall fiction. This is reality...
So when you think you have privacy. Just ask yourself. Why is it I had to have my arms above my legs to get a full body scan for 'bomb' material?
Just to make sure they got a good scan of your boobs, ladies, the flesh is harder to obtain a good sample through bone...
They make em. So you can rape em...
And leave the rest to those who have more than a casual understanding, whatever the topic.
Airport Scanners by the way :-)
...who has never read the US Constitution (something I have in common with probably 99% of US citizens), and whose primary knowledge of the Consitutional amendments extends only to the 18th and 21st Amendments, and the 5th amendment because I used to watch so many US lawyer shows (Perry Mason, LA Law, Ally I cannot comment on what, if any, privacy protections are given to the public in those documents - I suspect nothing explicit is included (, and further I suspect that any implied protections are based on individual interpretation of the wording.
From my perspective, the biggest issue is not that Law Enforcement agencies can conduct surveillance and gather information on citizens, but that that the checks and balances to allow investigation while preventing authoritarian abuses (i.e. the need to apply for a Judicial warrant before engaging in said surveillance beyond certain well-defined boundaries) have been eroded to the point where there seems to be no judicial oversight and no ability for the public to scrutinise the process after the fact.
Nuns are not incapable of evil...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abuse_scandal_in_the_Sisters_of_Mercy
I really like Scott Adams - but you should always take in account that he is a cartoonist. Even if he's trying to be objective, he's still using a lot of hybris and he'll always describe things in an awkward way. That's what makes him great at his job. I don't say he isn't basically right, he's just a bit drastic in his analogies.
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
has to say is not worth listening to. It's great that he turned "Garfield in an office" into a paycheck, but that doesn't make his opinions valuable.
there is no express Right to Privacy in the US Constitution. Period.
HOWEVER...
Ninth Amendment states:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Tenth Amendment states:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Government is strictly limited to doing those activities which are specifically authorized to it by the Constitution.
Everything else is left to “the States, respectively, or to the People.“
Constitutionally, the specific right to privacy does not exist. It is a privilege granted by local Statute. Data Protection Act, wiretapping restrictions, US Postal Service regulations and limitations, the Copyright Act and the Federal Reserve Act are but a few examples of Statutes that bestow privilege on certain types and methods of information, but for that information only - nothing in there even about personal privacy.
All that said, there is an ancient Anglo-Saxon saying from the time of King Alfred (9th c.), which goes "A man's home is his castle". This is in fact part of the Code of Alfred and about the closest you'll get to an actual Constitutional statement about the absolute right to privacy. Back then, if you even turned up outside the walls of a fort uninvited or unannounced and flying the pennant of an alien House, you stood to be run through, and deservedly so. In England these days we have as closest analogue, section 4A of the Public Order Act 1986 which provides for intentional alarm, harassment or distress but still no specific *right* to privacy. People have tried to apply section 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998 in civil Law but this Act only applies against Public Authorities, which are immunised from prosecution (civil or criminal) under HRA by section 71 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 which provides complete immunity if said corporate body turns evidence in *any other proceeding*.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
I hope those who comment on Scott Adam’s article take note of his caveat, “written for a rational audience that likes to have fun wrestling with unique or controversial points of view”. It’s a thinking-out-loud piece, which coming from Scott Adams, I enjoy.
I think he is wrong on two important points. One, I believe the Constitution does protect privacy, and I do not think Hitler analogies are self-refuting arguments. Hitler analogies are overused and too easy to make, which makes them fall on deaf ears, but not inherently self-refuting.
However, I do think Adams makes one good point. For those of you who are waging the war against the loss of privacy – news flash – you lost that war decades ago. Apparently you didn’t get the memo. It may be worth fighting to get privacy back, but it isn’t something we are in danger of losing. You cannot lose what you already lost. In this respect, I believe Adams makes a compelling case. Whatever privacy you think you enjoy is an illusion. It is a part of your life the government doesn’t care about at the present moment.
If we had automatic cars, then the whole drink/drug-driving problem would be solved as you wouldn't be driving the car.
SURELY NOT!!!!!
Privacy starts with protection from illegal search.
It's a shame that it wasn't extended further in the Constitution.
For whatver reason. No need for explaining. They already have everything on rvrtyone. Everything they need is in place and orking, I mean, working.
If a disgruntled neighbor or acquaintance rats on you, true or false, sincerely or maliciously, your color-coded filecard comes up in the IBM tabulator in some nondescript brown house belonging to some discreet covert institution directly or indirectly tied to formal government. You will be tagged, followed, eventually hounded and, maybe, will even get arrested or just suffer an accident or disappear. Just like in Heydrich's heydays.
Anything could be the cause. A rival, a silly grudge, a clerical error, a fly on the typewr... er, tablet screen. Anything.
Which is also why dictatorships become such silent places. And gloomy, and desponden. Did I mention, gloomy?
"Tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. The robber baron’s cruelty (and) cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." -- CS Lewis
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
He is jaded about society that he believes nothing can ever be in black and white. Check out his arguements against evolution (he practically based an entire episode of his tv show on making science look bad), why romney should be elected, or any of his arguements where he takes the side he wants, and calls everyone idiots.
Because law enforcement has always used its powers on "bad guys" and criminals. Long before Anonymous, the FBI was running RUIN life on people for their own agenda.
The author insinuates, like most other police states, that everyone suspected by law enforcement is really a criminal, and power is rarely abused.
for the record the name man trusts catholic nuns to guard his data
"I would trust nuns to guard my personal information in the cloud. I would also trust nuns to keep the government from getting my information and using it for evil. But I would limit the job to nuns who have been in the habit, so to speak, for at least twenty years"
http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/guardians_of_privacy/
Because the church does not evil. I mean they are a church. You must be a communist to think the church is evil.
Anyone who thinks that living in a police suvailence state, could you please link to another country on earth where it has worked, well, and the police do not abuse their powers? Link to biased outside media if you could.
But if you want to know what a police force, conducting secrect survaillence on US citizens looks like, you can google "Church Comittee"
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Church_Committee_Created.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee
Then there is "COINTELPRO"
https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=les%3B&gs_nf=3&tok=gukAibuebXq64nmwN-zOUw&pq=church%20committee&cp=6&gs_id=h4&xhr=t&q=COINTELpro&pf=p&safe=off&tbo=d&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&oq=COINTE&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=5339a8ff113dcf96&bpcl=37643589&biw=1108&bih=647
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
http://vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro
What we will have is that federal law enforcement will use their powers to undermine our democratic values by eliminating dissent/otherwise giving an unfair advantage to political canidates they agree with.
Anyone who comes accross damning evidences or otherwise criticizes the system, if not arrested, the FBI would have enough dirt that it could leak and destroy people's reputation. It could send neighbors against people, get people fired. Harrass spouses, friends, girlfriends.
You see the "things the FBI doesn't care about", changes when they want to single you out and make an extra-judicial example out of you. As Mario Savio, of the Berkley Free Speech movement.
And if you think that "congresstional oversight" is a magic bullet, when it just gives potentially unscrupulous members of congress something else to keep them in office.
Then we get to this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/terrorist-plots-helped-along-by-the-fbi.html?pagewanted=all
How long has the FBI been doing things like this before they got caught? This is a mainstream paper that in more modern times doesn't generally like to dig further than they need to. Good investigators like the FBI don't routinely get caught by half assed ametures link pro-journalists.
And that's why parents make the worst tyrants.
On that subject:
"Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely."
I believe, the exception is a person capable of doing everything themselves. Bad, ignorant leaders are potentially worse if they have more influence. A single, super-intelligent person doesn't need other people, so by virtue they have no interest in petty things and can be better leaders.
Dedicated Networks, Google Analytics, Doubleclick, and Comscore Beacon tracks you when you visit /. Just sayin'.
You don't get that many places. Conservative governemnts want to tell you to live your life the conservative way (things like, who you can sleep with, drinking laws etc), socialists want you to live your life the socialist way (things like, what you're allowed to do with your own money, the state will only engage with groups not individuals, one size fits all, etc).
Very few places have liberal governments who want you to be left alone to live your life *your* way, whatever that might be.
I think the GP was spot on. The key is there are very few absolutes in the real world that can be written down as rules. Safety and liberty is an evolutionary trade-off that all social animals must face, the rule that applies in this case is "survival of the fittest". From my personal experience, the US freedom train passengers don't want liberty they want freedom from the consequences of their actions. You are literally as free as a bird and a hell of a lot more powerful, fly as high as you like but don't bitch if someone blasts you out of the sky with a shotgun and has you for breakfast because everyone deserves freedom, right?
Or is it just the "innocent" who should be free to piss others off to the point where they attack them with exploding rocks?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
What happens when the government doesn't have the privacy? They say "oh no, we need the privacy that we deny you"
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/minneapolis-police-pushing-for-more-license-plate-data-privacy/
If we shouldn't have privacy from governmnt because "oh who cares it's boring", then neither should any police, fire, rescue vehicle, or any politician from the public. It is not in the public's interest to make governmnt managers a higher class of citizen who can see all but not be seen.
We don''t have any privacy from the Elites who own the country. Only Privacy we can expect to get is if they are not interested in us.
The so-called "right" to privacy, I think, boils down to practicing whatever type of treatment that one would prefer the people around them practice.
It's quite reasonable to desire some privacy in some matters, even if one has done nothing wrong, and I see privacy as being more a matter of treating those around us with plain old human respect and decency.
It doesn't make an inalienable right though.... more of a social privilege that we ought to grant eachother because we desire the same privilege for ourselves.
And do that end, I think that the only real problem comes in when one thinks that another has less entitlement to privacy than they, themselves, would like to have.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The problem with tracking everything is that criminals know they are being tracked, and so use subterfuge when they are committing crimes with the added benefit of having a squeaky clean (boring) tracking record for an alibi, and everyone else is afraid of LOOKING like a criminal because of the possible hassle so they don't do anything interesting.
You need privacy to be able to let your hair down and be yourself. Without privacy there's no keeping it real.
Tracking won't stop anyone from doing anything illegal. But privacy is a quality of life issue.
...
1st flaw seems to be the point of the article that since the government has a certain amount of power to look into your private life then you should not care if they have more... So by this logic we should be ok if the government no longer needs warrants to get things hell they can get them now if they have a warrant anyway.
2nd Flaw "It isn't a real risk to law-abiding citizens" . There is no such thing as a "law-abiding citizen"; You probably broke several laws already today that you don't know about... Many states its illegal to spit or get a blow job, most of you at least broke the speed limit on a public road.
3rd Flaw he state that he Odds of the government becoming NAZI like are the same as be a meteor. This may be true at the federal level.... But the government is made up of many people at many levels and anyone of them could start giving you issues where an invasion of privacy could be a real concern, especially if you some how differ from the norm in their fiefdom. EX being gay, black, a different religion or political affiliation.
And that's why parents make the worst tyrants
And libertarians. They're the ones making us free...no matter the consequence.
The people have unalienable rights, to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. As an expansion on these rights is the right to feel safe in your person. Privacy applies to that right if not by letter of the law, it does by spirit of the law.
Ruling over other people's lives is one of the most petty thing one can spend time doing, which is why there can be no good leader, ever. Life is nonsensical, obsessing over others' lives is nonsense squared.
Also, it's painfully obvious you're not a parent if you think you can lord it over your kid any way you think fit. A parent can have over his or her kids nowhere near the slightest approximation of the power even a small city mayor holds over his or her fellow citizens. Kids will seize authority over themselves from you bit by bit without question or notice as soon as they deem themselves ready for it - yes, whether they really are or not - and starting as early as a few months of age.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
It's not the government I am worried about, its amazing what can be unearthed using statistical inference.
I would argue that there is a right to privacy, and that it exists regardless of whether it is explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. As a justification, I point to the Ninth Amendment, which states "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." A right does not need to be in the Constitution to be had. No rights are granted. Rather, the Constitution states that rights already existing may not be infringed.
I don't know why people forget the Fourth Amendment when they talk about privacy and the Constitution:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated...
Surely your computer and your personal information are the modern equivalents of "papers and effects" as the founding fathers saw it? Although referring to government powers, and not explicitly about what corporations might be able to do, (since the founding fathers could never have envisioned what the world would become), the very idea of a right to privacy is implicit in the Fourth Amendment.
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
What about certain corporations that know all about us? Arguably, they know more than the government.
The right to privacy might not be explicitly stated in the Constitution, but case law has firmly established that it was implied by things such as the third, fourth, and fifth amendments. See Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), and Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), just to name the most significant.
Most of what is written into the Constitution is explicitly a reaction to a specific abuse the British were engaging in at the time of the American Revolution. The British stationed soldiers in private residences on the frontier, so the Founders prohibited that. The British searched people's papers and effects with no judicial oversight, so they prohibited that; they forced people to testify against themselves, so they prohibited that. If the government of the time engaged in strip searches, had "naked body scanners," and wanted to peek into people's medical records and sexual practices, I'm sure they would've prohibited that, too. But even among the worst governmental abuses back then, they still seemed to retain a basic common sense of decency which our government has long since lost.
Liberty in your lifetime
Do you really expect to see well-reasoned arguments from someone who believes that society is a plot by women to suppress men's inherent desire to rape people?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/20/dilbert-creator-scott-adams-on-rape_n_880590.html
A teenager cracker, up for a thrill finds that the central server's are guarded by a weak password, have an open port they did not know about. Or exploit a bug that has not been patched yet. Causing millions of dollars in damages by causing cars to careen out of control into obstacles they thought were not there killing hundreds if not thousands in one stroke.
Beyond the US Constitution prohibition on unreasonable search, and the 9th and 10th amendments, the concept of legal privacy has developed more in the courtroom than the legislature. Thus, you can't be legally photographed without your permission on a toilet, in a dressing room, or in other places where you have a reasonable expectation of privacy; and this is generally the result of an accumulation of numerous court decisions rather than explicit law.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
/. readers may be interested in something (fairly lengthy) I wrote on this subject:
On Privacy
I don't know why people forget the Fourth Amendment when they talk about privacy and the Constitution:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated...
Maybe because even the Supreme Court doesn't see the 4th Amendment as conferring a general "right to privacy," and had to pull "penumbras" out of their Constitutionally educated asses: Griswold v. Connecticut.
Although referring to government powers, and not explicitly about what corporations might be able to do, (since the founding fathers could never have envisioned what the world would become), the very idea of a right to privacy is implicit in the Fourth Amendment.
(1) Implicit, not explicit. There you go. (Hence, "penumbras.")
(2) Yeah, the Founding Fathers could never have envisioned globe-spanning megacorps.
geek. lawyer.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
-Thomas Jefferson
The standard in the Constitution is "probable cause". It worked then, no reason to change it now.
And force, my friends, is violence: the supreme authority from which all other authority is derived.
Naked force has resolved more conflicts throughout history than any other factor.
The contrary opinion, that violence never solves anything, is wishful thinking at its worst. Those who forget that always pay, and they pay with their lives.
--Starship Troopers.
Mr. Adams says:
>"The government doesn't know your medical history. "
Sorry, but this is 100% wrong.
I have worked in the medical industry for 24 years, and I can tell you that if your payer is Medicare, Medicaid, or Tricare, every single diagnosis code of yours is being sent to the government, regardless of where you obtain care. These codes completely describe your exact conditions, what procedures were done, and are combined with lots of other demographic info: name, birth date, address, gender, social security number, etc.
Regardless of payor, if you have a stay in a long term hospital or nursing home, a comprehensive and ongoing list of your conditions and diagnoses are being sent to the government regularly (many times) during your entire stay. And there are many other pieces of health information being sent to the government through various branches, including the CDC.
Several among many:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Uniform_Billing_Committee
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_Data_Set
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICD9#ICD-9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnosis-related_group
>The Big Brother concept seems a lot like the bogey man. It isn't a real risk to law-abiding citizens
Julian Assange might beg to differ on this point.
Solove, Daniel J., "I've Got Nothing to Hide" and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy. San Diego Law Review, Vol. 44, 2007; GWU Law School Public Law Research Paper No. 289. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=998565
Hosein, G. "Privacy as a political right". Privacy International. 2010. Available at: https://www.privacyinternational.org/reports/privacy-as-a-political-right
People get awfully exercised about privacy, particularly where government is involved. Thing is, guys, the question isn't really relevant, because most people really aren't interesting enough for their privacy from the government to be an issue.
Folks seem to think that they are a whole lot more important and interesting than they really are. It's ego, pure and simple.
OK, based on what you wrote I propose following formulation:
Everybody has a right not to participate in some "progress". All progress needs to be done only with those people, and only to those people, who agree to it.
So, if you do NOT want a cell phone, nobody will force you to use it. If you do NOT to be a borg, nobody will force you to become part of it. Plus, for the borg case: to maintain the social contract, others will try to protect you in cases when borg will try to integrate you against your will.
Would that be OK?
hany