I think those examples are begging the question. Many people would say they don't care if a Government agency knows any of that info. Why should they care? Personally I'm not worried if GCHQ know that I went to the doctor about a rash.
I find a more convincing argument is that the data can be abused for purposes beyond that for which it was gathered; for example, the disclosures about the DEA and 'parallel construction' shocked many people with whom I work. People respond more to the risk that their misdeeds will be discovered ( be it simple cash-in-hand tax evasion or more nefarious activities ).
>Personally I'm not worried if GCHQ know that I went to the doctor about a rash.
Except it can leave you vulnerable to blackmail. Say your rash is a symptom of a STD which was caused by a drunken one night stand with a x/y person you met at a bar. "Now you wouldn't your partner to find out would you?" says the guy in guy in the suit...
Other ways health records can be abused if your partner or child needs a transplant and they are way down the waiting list...
* 70% of Americans are currently using some form of prescription drug. Would you be comfortable if this information was given to, say, the next employer you interview with?
* Many health issues can be embarrassing for people, even relatively benign ones. This isn't always obvious until you've experienced it.
* Mental health issues often carry a social stigma. Yet 11% of the American population currently take antidepressants.
* Health records, by necessity, include vast amounts of personal information that isn't directly medical. Addresses. Phone numbers. Social security numbers.
Are you sure those statistics are right?
Do you have a source for them?
They just sound quite surprising to me (although I'm from the UK rather than the USA).
"Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug, and more than half take two, Mayo Clinic and Olmsted Medical Center researchers say."
I think the first 2 examples do not necessarily affect your personal privacy but the knowledge that there are some checks and balances left. You are right that data leaks/abuse might be the biggest risk concerning the 3rd example.
But who would you know if the data is abused or not if journalists can't convince their potential sources that their communication is private?
And if you - on some way - get the knowledge that your data is abused, what can you do? Sue the government? That's a lot more difficult if you can assume that the other side has potentially access to your whole strategy and to every mistake you ever did in your whole life (dirty campaigning/blackmailing).
The real issue is that it really doesn't matter that government knows your personal data unless you've something to hide. The problem is that government does not care about one person. The data becomes a threat only in large scale, when it can be used to predict and control society: https://medium.com/surveillance-state/f16655a5879f
"You wrote a letter critical of the governor. Let's see what's in your file, ..., hmm, it says here you went to LA when you told your wife you were going to SF. You wouldn't want us to tell her about that, would you?"
I think this is important, but abstract arguments aren't really going to fly with grandma. Tell them that atheist Obama is reading her church emails. That'll get them fired up. Or if your grandma voted for Obama, tell her that can you imagine if Dick Cheney were reading your DNC emails?
You have to make political issues personal. Personify them. That's why "welfare queen" was such a smashing success. Privacy advocates have to figure out how to put a face on NSA spying.
No need to lie to grandma. Obama clearly holds views antagonistic towards the deeply religious ("clinging to guns and religion.") There's nothing wrong with using that against him.
To make people understand what I mean I tell them about Martin Luther King and how the FBI concerned him as a threat to the public, he was kept under strict surveillance to collect information that would be used to blackmail him. The FBI collected information about Dr. King's plans and activities through and extensive surveillance program, from wiretapped telephones to hidden microphones in hotels and motel rooms.
Then aI ask: What if your kid is the next dissident, can you guarantee she/he won't have to step up and fight some absurdities? What will happen with she/he under the surveillance state we live today?
The problem with "normal people", those who have nothing to hide, is mainly one: you are telling the power what is important for you. I know this seems silly if we only think about ourselves (micro view), but it became a real problem when we realise the whole society is doing the same at the same time (macro view), telling the power what is important, where they should invest, make money, find/manipulate our geniuses, blackmail, incarcerate or kill our dissidents is just non-sense.
Everyone has information they would rather not be public, but many people don't realize that until it happens. Remember, most people aren't the focus of mass attention; we don't care if the information gets out because we can't imagine other people actually caring about us en masse until it happens.
Bruce Schneier has responded to "I have nothing to hide" with "tell me your salary." We all have things that we'd rather not have specific other people know, but privacy is usually thought of as protection against the anonymous crowds, and our social taboos haven't caught up to the new world.
I believe one of the most compelling arguments for mainstream individuals is to appeal to their sense of fairness. People don't always understand privacy - but they tend to understand fairness.
A simple, relatable example would be exploiting insider information to use in the stock market for huge financial gain. Access to confidential business communications gives individuals an unfair advantage to exploit that information for personal gain.
Now, there's no proof that this has taken place, but one has to assume that given the scope of what's collected, it easily could - and eventually will, if it hasn't already.
For the longest time, I combatted my conspiracy theorist friends who were sure the government was out to steal our freedoms by saying that such a conspiracy would require collusion by far too any people, and that since the advent of the internet, that kind of thing would be near impossible. The only thing that concerned me was the possibility of controlling communications (under guise of internet censorship). I asserted that if such censorship ever got passed, our brilliant cryptologist and internet freedom fighters would step up with larger efforts such as TOR to defeat such measures, and preserve our communication freedom and privacy. Someone would start a new network, trying to resolve some of those vulnerabilities that governments and criminals had found exploitable in the past. I am no longer comfortable with that answer. It seems this has all transpired, and we have been left unprepared. Perhaps the internet is too big to fail, and people will lay down and accept the abuse we suffer, because it is too difficult to find another way? More upsetting is, perhaps those friends and relatives weren't so crazy after all?
Remember Minority Report? What happens when "big data" applied to the dragnet flags you as dangerous because of a false positive. Let's start by comparing patterns in the data of known terrorists to everyone else and put the closest matches on a no-fly list.
The nothing to hide idea is interesting because it works both ways. If I have nothing to hide then I shouldn't worry about the NSA, according to them. On the other hand, if I have nothing to hide then they should have no reason to surveil me and shouldn't do so.
How about give the reasons why you believe something, rather than invent reasons after the fact that are tailored to other people's values? In fact, despite working in tech I don't think my values are very different to my Mother's or my Bosses (well actually my boss is an engineer too...). I don't agree with the idea of first finding the truth, and then formulating arguments to convince others. Exactly the same arguments that cause you to believe X are what you should be conveying to others. boi_v2 has a very good summary in this page of the reasons why I oppose mass surveillance.
Wish I had a quick link to the reddit post I read from a guy who lived in an active police state. He explained what it's like to be contacted by the government asking for a "favor". And, "btw, we noticed some questionable items in your uncle's file."
It's not just about you. It's about everyone you've ever cared about being used against you. Now imagine anyone considering doing anything the govt might not appreciate in that environment...
Too much text. If anyone want to have at least some slim success conveying these ideas the message has to be impactful and short. That's why "think of the children" and "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" work so well.
Except that many people believe they are - and will always be - "guilty" of nothing. (I have nothing to hide. . .). So that argument won't fly with huge numbers of people.
It's like the huge number of people who believe the police department/judicial system/system of choice is infallible until they personally know someone who was treated unfairly or see some egregious example of unfairness in the media. And even then, they still often believe that they never would have done XX and never would have found themselves in that situation.
If you interpret "guilty" as meaning "an action one is responsible for" then we really are all guilty of something. You are guilty of waking up this morning, you are guilty of making that post, you are guilty of expressing your opinion. The point is that a government that is tyrannical enough can in the future make anything you would normally think is totally innocent a crime and then use that against you to put you away.
a) When a message doesn't condense well, use anecdotes. I think cold war East Germany is a good example of what happens when politicians are allowed to spy on citizens.
b) Or, 'what if' scenarios. You say you have nothing to hide? What if in the future they decide that you're emotionally unstable if you are prone to crying easily, or if you raise your voice when angry? Or if you suffer from a phobia? And they keep you from important jobs or from having children?
They recently published an article suggesting people surrepticiously feed animal products to vegans, so I don't read their site anymore. I realize that not everybody will agree with that, but I'm not comfortable giving a site like that page views and ad impressions.
* It undermines the rule of law because the government should not know what you discuss with your lawyer.
* It sabotages the health system because you should be able to talk to your doctor in privacy.