Privacy is not about whether or not you have something to hide. Privacy is about having the personal liberty to choose, or not choose, who you share what information with. It is about feeling comfortable to open up with someone who previously did not know you well versus being forced open, pried apart like a bivalve. Privacy is important not because I have something to hide but because I want to feel comfortable with whom and what I share. It is about not saying something, or not having something known, simply if I don't want it to be known. It is about personal freedom more than anything else I think. I care about privacy when I want to surprise someone in a good way, like a surprise birthday party or present for instance. Too often privacy is associated only with secrecy and secrecy only with "something to hide." If someone knows personal information about me, even if I don't consider it 'bad,' they can choose to judge me for it anyway. They can use information against me even if it's not something that I did wrong. Sometimes sharing certain bits of information about oneself is intimate. There is an intimacy in secrets; it's like nudity. I'm not personally a fan of public nudity and when asked why I usually retort along the lines of "I work hard to have the body I do. I expect other people to work hard to see it." If everyone knows everything about each other it devalues personal information and I think can devalue relationships (friendships, romantic relationships, whatever). I mean, you wouldn't let me look at your bank statements or tell me your income, would you? But that's not "something to hide." It's not like there is a crime on your bank statements (well, I assume). It is just something you would prefer not everyone else see. As for our gov't, it's gone too far. But I'm afraid it's entrenched and there's not much we can do about it.
Absolutely. Privacy is a fundamental human right. No one else should be able to choose to whom I disclose information about myself or when I choose to do so. Losing that right makes us all susceptible to the biases, whims, and agendas of those who wish to collect, (mis)interpret, and manipulate information about us: [And organizations ha]ve mistaken data for people and statistics for character. As a result, they've created a world where people should be worrying about what their credit cards might say about them or whether a phone call or E-mail message could be misinterpreted by a bureaucrat or a piece of software. But organizations have no inherent right to data about us. Their "mining" of electronic networks, for browsing habits and communication patterns, is invasive. Their forms, which require us to divulge information to them that they have no reasonable use for, are obnoxious. Their habit of keeping, even relevant, information about us much longer than is necessary for them to do their jobs is irresponsible. Their notion that information about us is some sort of commodity, which they can sell and trade to each other, is contemptible. And their willingness to let statistics tell them who we "really" are, and what we are liable to do, is dangerous. And people who are only worried about the government are being naive. Employers, landlords, bankers, and schools are all making assumptions about you from this data too.Privacy is about having the personal liberty to choose, or not choose, who you share what information with.
We used to live in a world where privacy only worried celebrities. Now, we live in a world filled with questionnaires, application forms, and silicon gadgets — from credit-card readers to personal computers — that leave electronic tracks. ...
It's all about choice for me. The choice of showing what I want to whom I want when I want to. These things are incredibly personal, so who is a government to decide for me? I feel like the US government has lost sight of the individual concerns and only focusus on gathering massive amounts of private data just to maybe save a couple of people sometime. On the other hand, the more practical approach, is that I'm just not interesting to any of the intelligence agencies. I am very cautious about what I say online. It's a shame that it's necessary to walk on eggshells, but at least I can manage that.