The Value of Privacy (Bruce Schneier - 6/15 Cryptogram)

[Starfury]

Here's an excerpt from Bruce's latest Cryptogram newsletter on the NSA wiretapping:

The Value of Privacy

Last month, revelation of yet another NSA surveillance effort against the American people rekindled the privacy debate. Those in favor of these programs have trotted out the same rhetorical question we hear every time privacy advocates oppose ID checks, video cameras, massive databases, data mining, and other wholesale surveillance measures: "If you aren't doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"

Some clever answers: "If I'm not doing anything wrong, then you have no cause to watch me." "Because the government gets to define what's wrong, and they keep changing the definition." "Because you might do something wrong with my information." My problem with quips like these -- as right as they are -- is that they accept the premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong. It's not. Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect.

Two proverbs say it best: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" ("Who watches the watchers?") and "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Cardinal Richelieu understood the value of surveillance when he famously said, "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." Watch someone long enough, and you'll find something to arrest -- or just blackmail -- him with. Privacy is important because without it, surveillance information will be abused: to peep, to sell to marketers, and to spy on political enemies -- whoever they happen to be at the time.

Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance.

(...)

Much more at:
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0606.html#1

There are links to several other excellent articles on the subject of privacy and wiretapping that may not have been posted here, highly recommended.