How to tell your mother and bosses why they should protest surveillance

* It undermines the freedom of the press because journalists need to protect their sources.

* 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.

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.

I say: Never give truth to the power.

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.

A shorter response to "I have nothing to hide" is "Why do living room windows have curtains?" (It's not because of crimes or orgies.)

Another good response is, "Then would you mind if I inspect your wallet, nightstand, medicine cabinet, and tax return?"

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.

If you want to explain why surveillance is creepy, show your mother or boss this video and ask how they'd feel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz8PdALdQDI

To give some background, it's a man who simply walks up to people and starts taking video. It's amazing how many people get annoyed with it.

I think this runs close to performance art, and is the best demonstration possible, because it's so easy to empathise with those under scrutiny.

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.

Something occurred to me that might help drive intuition:

Everyone gets nervous when there's a cop behind them on the highway.

A playful response to "I have nothing to hide" is "... are you really that boring?"

Could somebody post this on pastebin for people who don't like to visit Slate?