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Comment by harry8 | Hacker News Reader

It is reasonable to assume that you are attempting to keep the information private. It is reasonable to assume that the US govt would not hack the information on that basis. If you assume it's public, why the hell are you using TOR at all? Use of TOR shows the assumption pretty clearly.

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if you're attempting to keep the information private, you're not doing a good job by handing it to a third party.

Expectation of privacy is kind of based around self-incrimination, and you lose a lot of those when you hand information to a third party.

Even if it's "public" (in the legal sense of 'not protected'), Tor can be useful against non-state actors, or against weaker state actors.

I'm not saying there isn't a colloquial expectation of privacy, but that the jurisprudence on privacy doesn't apply to Tor (or at least, that there is an argument that it doesn't).

You could also say if you don't want people photographing your genitals, don't use a third-party restroom or dressing room or tanning salon. The expectation of privacy really has (or should have) nothing to do with the existence of someone's ability to violate that privacy.

I agree with you emotionally, but question your argument legally. What, 'is,' and what, 'should be', are rarely the same thing.

If government wants something forbidden, it creeps towards it. Expectations are meaningless without threats.

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