Gauging the Dangers of Surveillance

An anonymous reader writes "We have a sense that surveillance is bad, but we often have a hard time saying exactly why. In an interesting and readable new article in the Harvard Law Review, law professor Neil Richards argues that surveillance is bad for two reasons — because it menaces our intellectual privacy (our right to read and think freely and secretly) and because it gives the watcher power over the watched, creating the risk of blackmail, persuasion, or discrimination. The article is available for free download, and is featured on the Bruce Schneier security blog."

Comments

Re:Yeah, but

[tlhIngan]

WONDERFUL Comment in the Schneier blog:

name.witheld.for.obvious.reasons à March 29, 2013 1:07 PM

"Surveillance, more specifically acts carried out by officials on persons without proper legal standing, is an illegal act. I, as a private citizen, cannot endlessly trail behind someone day and night, I'd be guilty of stalking. There is no inherent right of the government to stalk citizens (and quite possible persons) just because the government has the capability. There is another issue regarding prima facia, evidence or data collected by "authorities" must be testable, and not just by a judge, but by a jury as well. If the government is the accuser and the prosecuted then the balance and subjective nature of the evidence comes into question. The United States government has lost the rationale basis for prosecution, not just by tepid reasoning but by the false assumption that it is the government that must protect itself from the I consenting governed. It is by virtue of the people, the suspect, that the government is given any weight in respecting the person/individual. It's asking the rape victim to consent to being guilty of inducing the act and denying the production of evidence at trail. "Just trust us, you're guilty of involuntarily F'ing yourself."

The problem with stuff like Google Glass is NOT government surveillance, but just ordinary users spying on everyone else (and Google making it easily searchable by person and location - between facial recognition and geotagging, every image of you will be tagged).

Sure, the government is hamstrung by evidence laws, and such, but NOT the court of public opinion. You might be tried for something, but all it takes is some busybody (or a government leak) showing you walking out of less-than-church-moral places and turning your publicity against you.

Just ask anyone what happens when they're accused of sexual harassment - they may be completely vindicated in front of a judge, but the public starts to whisper all sorts of mistruths that a lifetime will never clear up. And you'll never be able to convince anyone otherwise.

Google Glass and the like aren't for the government, they're for busybodies who have nothing better to do with their lives than to ensure everyone upholds their kind of moral upstanding.