miriam_e: from my drawing MoonGirl (Default)
miriam_e ([personal profile] miriam_e) wrote2008-06-02 05:15 pm

privacy

If a state is truly worried about being able to snoop on bad guys (organised crime, terrorism, etc.) then it is in their best interests to make an open and tolerant society because one of the strongest arguments for privacy is that those in power arbitrarily criminalise people who have done no wrong (gays, drug users, people with different skin or hair or clothes, porn consumers, political dissidents, other cultures, etc). This means police will always be severely restricted in their ability to investigate real crime. The only way this could ever change is for society to open up and become tolerant. But in a weird, twisted way, it is perhaps a good thing that society has not become that tolerant yet, because so long as powerful people are easily corrupted it remains dangerous to discard privacy safeguards. The rules an open society operates under could easily be changed again at any time and the innocent criminalised.

Quite apart from that, contrary to what is often assumed, privacy is not a luxury. Animals as uncomplicated as lizards need some privacy or they simply die. Privacy is almost certainly required for health in creatures as complex as humans.