(05/08/06)
I really don't know what prompted this rambling. Maybe it's the recent talk of a new CIA Director, or because I've been following EFF v. AT&T, a case with some privacy concerns.
It appears to me that most people I know don't care too much about these cases. This makes me uneasy. I think we should be very careful with our privacy rights, because I don't like the idea of government intrusion into our lives.
One of the most common phrases I hear is "I don't have anything to hide; I don't mind them listening to my phone conversations if it helps them catch terrorists." There are several problems with this. If you truly don't have anything to hide, then the government is wasting its time listening to you. You should be concerned about this waste of resources. Another thing is that you are assuming that only good guys will use this back door into your private data. If a backdoor is engineered into your email, phone, internet, how long do you suppose it will take for spammers and identity thieves to exploit this hole? What's to keep the jealous ex-boyfriend from e-stalking you? And how can you be sure that the good guy agencies don't have a single bad guy with access? What if the authorities start using this access for purposes other than terrorism, and start aggressively pursuing people for copyright infringement? We should fight these developments tooth and nail.
Another thing is giving corporations personal information. I don't like what these companies do with the data. You're paying for the vast amounts of investment and overhead these programs cost, and they're designed to efficiently take your money away from you. Not to mention there's often nothing illegal about one of these companies selling their data to someone else. Or the fact that many of these companies don't do a good job of keeping their employees from selling this data (illegally) to said spammers, telemarketers, identity thieves, etc. It's probably better to keep this stuff away from them.
Here's the thing - I feel this way, and it is my freaking job to gather intelligence through electronic signals. I just hope nobody ever asks me to break the law.
Support the EFF in their fights. Besides protecting our privacy rights, they also fight against laws that cripple technology in the name of copyright protection and chill free speech that is often beneficial to society at large.
Update - I just read this and think that it's relevant. I don't like the idea of police following me because they're investigating someone who is a friend of a friend of mine.
