Anything is probably too strong a word for me to use here. There's almost certainly some overlap with stuff like the 4th Amendment. But while you probably could use property rights as an alternative way to get at some government abuse, you've changed the overall nature of your argument.
TLDR, privacy is something that's intrinsic to you as a person, and property is something external that you just happen to have right now.
The typical arguments that are used to defend property rights (including the arguments that OP uses in this article) are largely centered around economic harm. In longer conversations this usually ends up being even worse than OP's apple example because the most direct analogy that gets brought up when discussing information ownership is copyright, which has a concept of fair use.
A pretty large component of nearly all existing IP systems is that there is a somewhat tangible value to information, and when someone takes your information they are taking that potential value away from you. And OP is probably right, if you tell an average person that Google is stealing from them, you will get a bigger reaction than if you tell them that Google is violating their privacy.
But privacy as I view it is not about economic harm, or even about my right to control how a piece of information gets used. Privacy is, very roughly, about my right to hide.
Right or wrong, if you go to an average person on the street (or even an average Congressperson) and tell them that putting all of your phone call metadata in a database violates your property rights, they're going to somewhat reasonably say, "that doesn't effect your potential market. It's not really harming you or preventing you from exercising your property rights. And if it ever does harm you for some reason, then you can argue it in court then."
But when I talk about PRISM in terms of privacy instead of property, the arguments I make are more direct. Violating someone's privacy has an observable chilling effect on freedom of speech and freedom of association regardless of whether or not future action is taken. In the US, we already have Supreme Court precedent on the books that a right to anonymity is often an essential part of exercising freedom of speech. We don't have any similar precedent that I'm aware of around IP or even general property rights.
Property rights additionally lead to undesirable questions like, "can the government tax your information?", or "if the government really wants your information, can it use eminent domain to seize it?", or "If you die, and no one inherits your information, can the government take it then?"
I sort of agree with this. I'm cynical that the genie can be put back in the bottle. I also think for a certain crowd whose support you'll need for any changes along these lines, the term "freedom of speech" has become politicized too much. I'm not sure it's an ideal that we can still rally around as a country.
What we seem to be able to rally around is money. And I think once people realize they're sitting on some real monetary value, they'll be galvanized to pursue some of the things we hope to get with privacy advocacy.
These are great things to point out and part of why I started this blog. I knew there were smarter people out there that would think of all the things I'm not thinking of.
TLDR, privacy is something that's intrinsic to you as a person, and property is something external that you just happen to have right now.
The typical arguments that are used to defend property rights (including the arguments that OP uses in this article) are largely centered around economic harm. In longer conversations this usually ends up being even worse than OP's apple example because the most direct analogy that gets brought up when discussing information ownership is copyright, which has a concept of fair use.
A pretty large component of nearly all existing IP systems is that there is a somewhat tangible value to information, and when someone takes your information they are taking that potential value away from you. And OP is probably right, if you tell an average person that Google is stealing from them, you will get a bigger reaction than if you tell them that Google is violating their privacy.
But privacy as I view it is not about economic harm, or even about my right to control how a piece of information gets used. Privacy is, very roughly, about my right to hide.
Right or wrong, if you go to an average person on the street (or even an average Congressperson) and tell them that putting all of your phone call metadata in a database violates your property rights, they're going to somewhat reasonably say, "that doesn't effect your potential market. It's not really harming you or preventing you from exercising your property rights. And if it ever does harm you for some reason, then you can argue it in court then."
But when I talk about PRISM in terms of privacy instead of property, the arguments I make are more direct. Violating someone's privacy has an observable chilling effect on freedom of speech and freedom of association regardless of whether or not future action is taken. In the US, we already have Supreme Court precedent on the books that a right to anonymity is often an essential part of exercising freedom of speech. We don't have any similar precedent that I'm aware of around IP or even general property rights.
Property rights additionally lead to undesirable questions like, "can the government tax your information?", or "if the government really wants your information, can it use eminent domain to seize it?", or "If you die, and no one inherits your information, can the government take it then?"