The essay proceeds in three broad sections. In the first, he unpacks the "I've got nothing to hide" argument into its strongest form, and does a fine job of it. In the second, he talks about privacy as a concept, notes that it's difficult to define, and instead enumerates a list of privacy-related problems. In the final section, he tries to explain why the "I've got nothing to hide" argument is flawed.
Except that I didn't come out of that last section feeling I'd encountered a strong argument. It seemed like the author was waving his hands and saying, "There's a strong argument over this way -- it's Kafkaesque, not Orwellian!" But I never did encounter it.
That's a shame. I was sort of hoping he'd go through his list of potential problems, and talk about how each could become an actual problem.
The best argument I saw was that the accumulation of information represents power over the individual. I might put it like this: The more information the government has about you, the greater the chance you and an ill-considered law or policy will have an unfortunate encounter in the future.
I still think that deserves a bit more unpacking, though.
The essay proceeds in three broad sections. In the first, he unpacks the "I've got nothing to hide" argument into its strongest form, and does a fine job of it. In the second, he talks about privacy as a concept, notes that it's difficult to define, and instead enumerates a list of privacy-related problems. In the final section, he tries to explain why the "I've got nothing to hide" argument is flawed.
Except that I didn't come out of that last section feeling I'd encountered a strong argument. It seemed like the author was waving his hands and saying, "There's a strong argument over this way -- it's Kafkaesque, not Orwellian!" But I never did encounter it.
That's a shame. I was sort of hoping he'd go through his list of potential problems, and talk about how each could become an actual problem.
The best argument I saw was that the accumulation of information represents power over the individual. I might put it like this: The more information the government has about you, the greater the chance you and an ill-considered law or policy will have an unfortunate encounter in the future.
I still think that deserves a bit more unpacking, though.