Observing the Necessity of Privacy
I have always liked to say:
We have a responsibility to privacy, not a right.
If Privacy is a right, it is a right that cannot be given to the people by any governing bodies.
Why?
Do you believe that, in some kind of utopia, humans will have such a right to privacy they:
Will not need to obtain or put on clothing?
Will not need to use the bathrooms with walls around them?
Will not need to use https in the browser? (or use obscure banking ids/numbers/passwords)
If you do any of these things you are exercising your responsibility to privacy, not a right.
But what about no “unreasonable search and seizure”, isn’t that some right to privacy?
Like the other Ten Amendments, the Fourth amendment is stipulating what governing bodies in the U.S. do not have the authority to do. None of the amendments make any assertions on what power the people have; because they should have all the power. The Ninth and Tenth amendments should make that apparent if you like studying the amendments and believe they have some authority in the U.S..
What I see...
I have noted two types of extremes the “I have a right to privacy” and “Nothing should be private”. I could divide people into these two groups. But, the truth is that people are unique, and most often fall somewhere in-between.
I think we could devise a spectrum like The World's Smallest Political Quiz. The Up-Down Axis would be the level of understanding privacy.
The Left Side
those who think privacy should not exist saying...
Privacy is not required if people are good, so let’s all stop using privacy now and we will all become good.
The Right Side
those who think privacy is a given saying...
Privacy is a right, all people should have.
The Bottom
those who misunderstand privacy saying...
If your not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide.
Of course, no one would like such a chart. Those on the Left and Right would not want to be lower than the top because they understand privacy. And, just like The World's Smallest Political Quiz, it encourages a specific political position. So we could switch to something like the Political Compass. Flip up and down, so we don’t look biased toward freedom. And, add triangles to the edges, to provide more purist options for the masses. The anarcho-capitalist can stay in the lower right corner with “all the great and wonderful businesses will provide perfect privacy to all people”. The anarcho-communists can take the usual lower left corner with “no one needs privacy because everything is wonderful and perfect”. The Fascists have their own spectrum to choose from up top, from “the state should discover and publicize everything” to “the state should observe everyone making sure no one is snooping into the privacy of others”. Now everyone can begin discussing.
Now, let me see if I can place posts from Steemit about privacy into the correct chart position. First please understand a few things:
- This is my changeable opinion, it may change in the future and I do not intend to insult.
- Some article's point of view does not fit in the position on the chart, but the topic does.
- I appreciate the work done to create such posts, that's why I am using them.
- I don’t even agree with this(Political Compass or World's Smallest...) charts, and increasing the dimensions of it would not help.
Something I will have to explain in another post about trying to escape politics.
| We Don't need Privacy | * | * | Government helps provide correct Privacy | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Criminals with Bitcoin | Government to Remotely Search and Seize | Government Makes more Privacy | * | |
| Privacy is Weird | Don't Give up Privacy | Find Better Privacy than Steemit | * | |
| Freedom, to say and do whatever | Privacy vs Secrecy | Privacy is a Human Right | Privacy is a choice for each Person(No Government) |
Another aspect to all of this is Property
What we keep private is generally known to us as our property(eg. passwords, our body, private letters). Information(not physical property), can be provided to all people in such a way that all people can agree it is “public”(eg. Steemit). Some people would reject the idea that any physical property should be “public”, but would need to accept the fact that information cannot follow the same rules. Others would reject the idea that any human should claim 100% ownership of any physical property, they would most likely use the same principle for information. Between these extremes is a political debate of how control over humans should be devised. Bringing me back to "I don’t even agree with this(political compass) chart." Please keep following for more posts.
Privacy is more of a responsibility than a right because it's not an explicit right. It tends to appear as a manifestation of all of our other rights, without ever being actually granted as a right.
For example, if you own property, the law is that other people can't trespass on that property with your permission. That means that even though you don't have an express right to privacy, what you have and what you do on that property becomes private knowledge that only you and your invitees know. Furthering this idea is the fact that even the government and law enforcers can't come on to your property without either your express permission or an official judicial warrant that's only issued if there's a demonstrated probable cause that you're doing something illegal.
Privacy also ends up being somewhat implied by people's right to speech, religion, and so forth. If you're allowed to express unpopular opinions -- and that's even a protected right -- then surely you're allowed to have unpopular thoughts. Your own thoughts, opinions, viewpoints -- anything you think, say, and do that's not illegal -- is your own private viewpoint unless you make a public spectacle out of it. You have a right to privately hold whatever beliefs you want, and even to express them to your chosen audience. Same with religion. What faith, or lack thereof, you choose to practice is up to you.
An implied 'right' to privacy also comes about historically, such as through the abolition of prohibition laws (drinking becomes a personal, private decision, as long as you're not doing anything illegal), and more recently in modern history (women being granted a right to a quick and quiet abortion - even married women terminating pregnancies without their husbands' knowledge, and even minor children doing so without their parents' knowledge in some cases). Homosexuals being granted the right to marry (previously stigmatized sexual practices becoming a legitimized private personal choice). And so on.
Essentially, without actually saying it out loud, the rights people have been given, initially and over the years, paint a picture that unless something is specifically illegal, anything people say, do, or think is their own business. It's private unless they make it public.
I would think marriage is a public matter.... But that misses the point.
If more than 3 people are aware of some given information, all people aware of that information should assume it is not private, and the world knowing is outside of their control.
From my point of view, the "right to privacy" would be akin to the "right to bear arms". It does not mean anything if it is not exercised. In other words, no government gives people rights to "bear arms" or "have privacy", the people who care enough will exercise the responsibility of obtaining such abilities.
Well, that's every right the government grants. A government-granted right is essentially the government saying, "we won't stop you from doing X".
Anyway, I think your definition of privacy is a little stringent.
If I am required, by law, to disclose that I am doing activity X in my home, with some kind of penalty imposed if I fail to disclose my performance of activity X, then that's not private. I have no choice whether people know what I'm doing in my home.
But we have the opposite situation. It is illegal for anybody to come into my home without my permission. Even the government and law enforcement officials. Therefore, anything I do in my home is private.
Sure, I could tell three or more people what I'm doing, but that's my choice. I control who does and does not know what's going on. It's my information to disclose or withhold as I see fit. So it's private information. If I'm really worried about it becoming less private, I can even have people sign various contracts not to disclose the information, which imposes a penalty on them if they don't maintain my privacy.
If I control the disclosure of the information, then it's private information, until I choose to make it public.
I have big issues with the idea of nothing to hide. Every time I'm confronted with that boilerplate, I ask the person if they'd like to share their sexual history with me. When they decline, I say but that's part of privacy and if you have nothing to hide...
I've actually converted a few people just like that.
Right now I'm thinking "Duh, why didn't I say that to ...".
Cheers for vote! I share one back :-)