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> Should it be illegal to gather information on people simply because they didn't authorize it? Should individuals have the power to control what others do with the information that is publically knowable about them? I, personally, say no.

I think this is the third time I'll make this post on HN, but it's been relevant every time.

Privacy is not about having something to hide, or about keeping things secret. Giving the government the power to store all this data about you isn't bad because they might learn embarrassing things; after all, it will most likely only be read by a computer.

But it gives the government enormous power to make decisions about you -- decisions about whether you may take a commercial airline flight, get a security clearance, or even get a job -- without your knowledge or consent, and without you knowing how they make the decisions. It's not Orwellian, it's Kafkaesque.

In short, a lack of privacy gives the government the power to be even less transparent in its decision-making, and gives it yet more power over its citizens. It's not a question of discovering your fetishes or being embarrassed, and we shouldn't respond to the "but I have nothing to hide" argument as though their conception of privacy is right and having nothing to hide really is an excuse.

There's a rather good paper I can recommend on the subject:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565

"As long as they are simply gathering all information that is legally knowable"

The law is out-of-date. When the law was written, constructing a dossier on a person required effort -- officers in the field, following the target around, interviewing people, etc. Today, the dossier can be rapidly assembled, assuming it has not been already by some private company that "specializes" in constructing such things.

We need an update to the law, to protect our rights from government use of new technologies.

"Phone records. Addresses. Aliases. Friends. Fingerprints. Is it wrong that they want to put in all in place? Would we be happier if they had to run around to 25 different government agencies / 25 private corporations to get the information?"

Yes, I would be happier if the bureaucracy slowed the police down, as a basic protection against tyranny. We have far too many laws, and far too many prisoners -- anything that slows the expansion of our prison population and renders absurd laws unenforceable should be welcomed. Do you really think that these databases will be used solely to catch murderers and rapists? Most of people targeted by these sorts of programs will be nonviolent, non-dangerous offenders who will be charged with dozens of crimes and told to either take a plea bargain or risk a longer sentence if they exercise their right to a trial (and if even a tenth of them were to demand a trial, our court system would be overwhelmed by the case load -- yes, that is how extreme things have gotten).

"I'd like to know I have the freedom to do the same thing"

You do not. Go ahead, try to go around your town collecting these sorts of details -- you'll be arrested for harassing people, being a public nuisance, resisting arrest, and probably multiple other crimes.

"Should individuals have the power to control what others do with the information that is publically knowable about them?"

We are not talking about any other random people, we are talking about the police. The police are a special class of people. We let them arrest people, holding people against their will at gunpoint. We do this because some people pose a danger to society, but we must be careful with just how much power the police have, in both firepower, information collection, and budget (currently, the police can recycle the proceeds from certain kinds of arrest back into their budgets; unsurprisingly, such arrests are more common than any other, and our prisons are filled with people who were targeted for such arrests).

I just want the point out that the reason that this is so scary is that your reasoning can be taken the other way. It's always a slippery slope. How much is too much? Anything that's now illegal to obtain, can be made legal and the process starts over.

If you begin to allow your freedom and liberty to be eroded bit by bit, you're not going to notice it when it's totally gone. There's a reason why the freedom to privacy is important, and there are reasons why it was (and is) a good idea to follow the "innocent until proven guilty" line of thought.

Now I'm unsure where I stand myself, between the 2 extremes: allow a murderer walk due to lack of evidence or allowing the government to lock up innocent civilians just based on an algorithm's "suspicion" without charge. There has to be a middle ground somewhere. What I do know is, with the way things are going, it's moving faster and faster towards the later...

I don't have the answer but I think we agree that the citizens of the country that will be put under surveylance should have a say on whether they are OK with it, not signed into law behind their backs. I mean, I thought that's what democracy is all about.

In either case, since I don't live in the US, all I can really do about it is talk. It's up to you guys to have meaningful discussions and take action (or not) on this. But just know that this will end up affecting the way other world power treat their citizens. The world will definitely be keep an close eye on this.

Problem is that errors are always going to occur. the stronger the data sets the harder it can be to prove your innocence. We have rights and the law not to prevent the bad guys from doing bad things, but to protect the citizens from the potential misuse of the governmental system.

>Is it wrong that they want to put in all in place?

You seem to be operating under the assumption that there is a definitive answer here. There isn't, and this is completely subjective. The idea that 300M+ people will agree on such a question, to me, is ridiculous. It is really a matter of 2 questions:

1) How many false positives are acceptable?

2) Are we willing to accept the consequences if this information falls into the wrong hands?

Reasonable people will disagree on the answers, and I believe the U.S. was the last country founded (granted, on the lands of others') upon the idea that freedom and individual rights (over the collective) should be maximized. More and more, as the U.S. has matured we've seen and continue to see the collective rights being prioritized.

To be clear, I am not sure where I stand personally, but I am simply trying to objectively point out what I see.