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Comment by mtgx | Hacker News Reader

Then why don't they focus on that alone? If you worked for an organization that saved 10 babies a month, but used 90 women for sex trade, would you continue to work there because "you're helping save babies", or would you be disgusted with that organization?

I know my example is a little extreme, but it's kind of what GCHQ and NSA do, too. They use their powers maybe 10% of the time to look for terrorists and whatnot, and then the other 90% to get data on everyone, including people in power that they can blackmail and influence. Don't think this is just a theory. There have been articles in the UK press about MI5 for instance covering up child abuse by politicians because they wanted to blackmail them with that. Enough said?

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Not everyone views the world the same way. Some people would willingly trade their privacy for safety ("myself included") and would not feel "ashamed".

However, my appraisal of "safety" markedly differs (like most people's appraisals of things) and I am more concerned with an overzealous government than a foreign attacker. I would trade my google search history for a bullet-proof vest if I was in a war-zone. However, I am not, and I don't think giving it to the government makes me safer.

However, people view the risk to the country and themselves differently and they also put markedly different values on their own privacy[0]. Also, this article should come as absolutely NO surprise to anyone in the HN community (or even anyone with internet).

edit: [0] which they use as a framework to assess how others value their own privacy AND the value they themselves put on others privacy.

The problem here of course is you're not just trading your privacy for your feeling of security, it's that you are trading MY privacy for your sense of security, and doing so without my permission and against my direct wishes.

Look, I am pretty security conscious and while I am not going to list off my environment configuration, and it isn't perfect, I am sure I take privacy and security much more seriously (technologically) than most Americans.

The point I was sort of facetiously making here was that the people who implement these things don't think about it the way we do. They probably don't feel ashamed and do it out of a misplaced sense of patriotism, power or coercion(if they got caught doing wire crimes).

More granularly, if you believe you are protecting America from a 9/11 scale attack I could certainly see trading away some of your fellow countrymen's privacy.

These aren't my personal views on privacy or security I was making the point that some engineers won't be ashamed implementing this sort of stuff. I am pro freedom and privacy to be clear, and, I wouldn't make the above trade.

Cheers, you're selling the rest of us down the river.

>There have been articles in the UK press about MI5 for instance covering up child abuse by politicians because they wanted to blackmail them with that.

Citation?

I've seen articles like this, http://news.sky.com/story/1523821/child-abuse-pm-tells-polic..., but none that give the reason for the coverup as being enabling MI5 to blackmail people.

http://www.channel4.com/news/mi5-child-abuse-cover-up-allega...

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