- Edward Snowden
If they're anything other than white skinned, blue eyed, blonde haired, heterosexual, male, centrist-politically leaning (or one of the other few extremely simplistic predefined options - analogy: the block-shapes-through-the-board children's game) - history called. It's got some advice to give - but, of course, barely anyone is listening. (except the government. No, they're listening plenty... just not to history - they're too busy listening to the sound of hubris!)
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Imagine a crime takes place in a certain area. Using surveillance technology, police identify everyone who was in the area around the time of the crime. They do this through license plate recognition, face recognition, cell phone tracking, and credit card receipts. You happen to be on that list because you were shopping at a nearby store earlier.
You're now technically a suspect in a crime, although there's a thousand other suspects, and you have nothing to hide, so no big deal, right?
A witness saw the perpetrator running away from the crime. They only saw them from the back, but report that the suspect is a tall white male around 40 years of age.
So police narrow down that list to just people who fit this description. Uh oh, the list is now only about 50 people, and you're one of them.
The crime appears to be a potential race-motivated hate crime. Using web profiling, investigators search for those 50 people to look for any history of involvement with hate groups. The algorithm they use has over-zealously classified certain extreme right wing news sources as potential markers for hate crime.
You're not particularly worried, I mean, you're obviously not some crazy racist. There's no way they'd be interested in you.
But you forgot - six months ago, you started to get interested in the immigration debate, and posted on several anti-immigration forums.
With the additional profiling, the list narrows down to 8 suspects, including you. You happen to fit other markers for this kind of crime as well - you live alone, work a less prestigious job, neighbors say you don't go out much.
Now you're a suspect in a crime. You'll almost certainly not be convicted, because there's no direct evidence. But good luck explaining that to your employer, your family, your friends, and the criminal defense lawyer you now have to pay for.
Still think you have nothing to hide?
There's no way the CPS in the UK would take a "well he was probably in the general area based on his number-plate, and he reads the Toadygraph newspaper and is in the 52% who are for Brexit", even along with matching a general profile for criminals, and seek a prosecution on that basis. Not to mention it would be a huge miscarriage of justice to convict. And that the courts don't have time for arsing around with people who may have a tenuous link to an area where a crime may have been committed; we don't have time, seemingly, for the "certain" cases.
But what about the people who don't support racism/xenophobia, read a mix of news sources, aren't male (and so don't match with crime profiling). Are you saying their argument for not needing strong encryption is valid? That would seem to be a corollary of your hypothetical situation, you've cherry picked long-shot situations compounded together that would lead to a case laughed out of court - no motive, no evidence, no credible witnesses.
>Still think you have nothing to hide? //
Seems like ~99% of people reading that who weren't convinced before hand would say "yes".
Also, if they're savvy they know that the store where you went has your MAC address logged for customer tracking and corroborates your story (due to "privacy violation"), the car-park away from the scene on their number-plate cam shows you stayed in the area long after the alleged crime and so weren't fleeing, another shop has you on their instore tapes at the time the police say the crime was committed.
Now the Toadygraph has picked up your story and someone leaked that you wouldn't have been picked up if you weren't a reader; the Barclay brothers are threatening to pull their Tory party funding and so the PM is putting pressure on the presiding Chief of Police to make an example of the department responsible.
Lawyers are starting to contact you (they got your info because you left your friend list open on Facebook) and are offering to lodge a case for unlawful arrest for you and the compensation they're suggesting looks promising ...
Meanwhile people are wondering why the police didn't catch the perp; the police say it's because they don't have access to all the data they need due to public privacy concerns ...
That said, even if this specific scenario isn't realistic, discussions about the problems with surveillance state don't have to be grounded in "what happens right now" because the information stored today is available to future regimes and the specific technology involved is continuously changing.
> But what about the people who don't support racism/xenophobia, read a mix of news sources, aren't male (and so don't match with crime profiling). Are you saying their argument for not needing strong encryption is valid?"
Not at all, and I'm surprised that's what you would conclude from my statement. Obviously not every crime ever has that specific profile. The point was that when you have tons and tons of information about everyone, that is all categorized and geotagged and searchable and machine-learnable, it's a LOT easier for a completely innocent person to become a suspect.
The Eternal Value of Privacy
http://archive.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securi...
Practically speaking, I believe it's impossible to convince most people, including myself, to change their behaviour online. In my opinion this is because most people feel detached from any instrumental or guiding role in their society. They simply have no agency, no say in what is done to them and what is done in their name. Because of this perceived abyss between them and the state, the notion that its magnifying glass will be turned, one day in the future, upon them personally, is incredible. The distance is too great. And because they feel like they have no stake in the fate of their society, their browsing habits are anyway innocuous: they probably rightly think that they won't raise any flags. To leap from that state of affairs to a future in which individuals start to be singled out for their browsing habits requires an effort of the imagination that most of us don't have the time or energy to undertake in the detail needed for it to be realistic or even actionable.
Here's one response: "Imagine if you ever wanted to join the Occupy Wall Street movement or something like that. All of a sudden the government, who will now see you as a threat, can go through everything you've ever done and hold it against you. Remember that one time you pirated a movie? Jail time. Remember that one time you experimented with drugs? Jail time. They will dig up something from your past and use it against you. Oppression is not a theoretical idea and not only an historical problem. Having all information about yourself available essentially makes you politically neutered."
I'll be putting together a set of real-world examples to further emphasize the point.
Do average citizens send pictures of their genitalia to people? Are you saying that the gov is downloading everyone's photos, or are you saying they have the capability.
I want law enforcement to have the capability to access images pertinent to an investigation when they have a warrant; it seems harmful to justice to prevent that by legislation. Oliver appears to be saying because the government can access such information they're necessarily over-powered; surely without such capability then they'd be incapable of following even the most basic of criminal organisations and certainly incapable of tracking information pertinent to defence from foreign powers and, yes, domestic terrorism.
"If the government were looking at pictures of my penis that would upset me."
The question is if you say "would you agree to the government being able to see all the pictures on a device of a suspected criminal, eg in a murder investigation" how many will say "no because they might see an image of the suspects dick and so it would be an invasion of privacy". Now "if you were the main suspect in a murder investigation, should the government be allowed to see the pictures you stored on your device"?
We all now a large proportion of people would want to hide naked images of themselves from casual observers, but TBH if the cost of cracking a terrorist ring is a government operative seeing a picture of me naked then I'll tie a bow on it and send it in gift wrap; I'm shy but it's only a body part.
The argument has been simplified by Oliver beyond what is relevant. There's much more nuance than he's pretending there is IMO.
Now, if the government agencies have agents viewing for private reasons images that are downloaded, or they're accessing data that has been acquired illegally then we have something to work on. Doubtless that happens.
PS: I'll admit I've not followed the Snowden case in depth as it's not particular interesting to me. I'm much closer to the "nothing to hide" people than the "the government know what toilet paper I use the world will end tomorrow" people [nice and objective!] as you may have surmised.
"Dick pics" are actually a pretty good example of something one clearly doesn't want to share with third parties, but may not be aware that they're already sharing (or can be sharing under circumstances that may not be immediately obvious).
Which is short for "the democratic will of the people" in a democracy. If the government is some elite group that you don't want governing you then vote them out.
"And yet here you are, wearing clothes."
Just ask them if they'd be comfortable with Donald Trump or Nigel Farage being able to read their browsing history for a year. If they are, there's no point in talking to them. If they're not, then introduce them to Tor.