Except that the government doesn’t claim that it has nothing to hide. On the contrary, it has official rules about hiding things. It’s not hypocrisy to say that governments have a need for secrecy which is different from that of a normal individual.
I have rules about hiding things too. A couple of them are not having creepy weirdos trying to spy on me when I’m making love to my wife, or listening in on deeply private conversations behind closed doors. But for some reason certain people seem to think we don’t deserve that essential liberty now, despite it being guaranteed in the Constitution.
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you. What I’m claiming is that the fact that a government, even a good government, needs to have secrets doesn’t have much bearing on the argument for an individual’s right to privacy. That doesn’t imply that there’s no individual right to privacy.
The individual does have an essential and legal right to privacy though, the 4th Amendment of the Constitution clearly outlines that. The corporations and the government want to pretend that violating those rights through digital devices we own isn’t a violation of the Constitution, when it very clearly is. Snooping through our cloud documents, scanning text messages, or activating a camera or microphone on our phone is no different than sneaking into our homes and going through our paperwork, reading private letters, and installing a hidden microphone and camera. Just because something is digital doesn’t mean that it’s exempt from our rights. The digital world is every bit as real as the physical world for people who are online.
And yes, of course governments have a genuine need for privacy, as do private and public businesses. The point of the post isn’t to say they don’t, it’s to say that we do too and their hypocrisy is bullshit.
Except that the government doesn’t claim that it has nothing to hide. On the contrary, it has official rules about hiding things. It’s not hypocrisy to say that governments have a need for secrecy which is different from that of a normal individual.
I have rules about hiding things too. A couple of them are not having creepy weirdos trying to spy on me when I’m making love to my wife, or listening in on deeply private conversations behind closed doors. But for some reason certain people seem to think we don’t deserve that essential liberty now, despite it being guaranteed in the Constitution.
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you. What I’m claiming is that the fact that a government, even a good government, needs to have secrets doesn’t have much bearing on the argument for an individual’s right to privacy. That doesn’t imply that there’s no individual right to privacy.
The individual does have an essential and legal right to privacy though, the 4th Amendment of the Constitution clearly outlines that. The corporations and the government want to pretend that violating those rights through digital devices we own isn’t a violation of the Constitution, when it very clearly is. Snooping through our cloud documents, scanning text messages, or activating a camera or microphone on our phone is no different than sneaking into our homes and going through our paperwork, reading private letters, and installing a hidden microphone and camera. Just because something is digital doesn’t mean that it’s exempt from our rights. The digital world is every bit as real as the physical world for people who are online.
And yes, of course governments have a genuine need for privacy, as do private and public businesses. The point of the post isn’t to say they don’t, it’s to say that we do too and their hypocrisy is bullshit.