Privacy advocates are wusses because they won’t talk about the best reason to oppose creeping surveillance: allowing people to get away with doing the wrong thing.
Privacy also allows people to disobey what is "legal" but not "moral" or "ethical". (Not going to expand on those nebulous words because you are the philosophy bear, not me.) I'd like to hope that just because we have the ability to surveil everyone, and we currently do, and it is currently "accepted", does not mean it always will be.
Hm, but does this argument really work against surveillance per se or only against too high a prosecution rate?
Less surveillance biases who gets prosecuted in favor of smart, resourceful criminals who can hide their crimes. So additional privacy is a regressive tax in terms of prosecution. Wouldn't a "fairer" solution be to have total surveillance and then simply fix a prosecution rate and randomize who gets prosecuted (possibly weighted by the severity of the offense, disregarding other reasons not to have total surveillance, of course)?
I think the case would be stronger if the main purpose and effect of surveillance was to catch more criminals.
But it's oft not. Red light cameras *might* be used to track robbers, but are mostly used to send tickets to people who... Run red lights!
Sending tickets, after all, has none of the costs to society of jail (in fact it generates revenues), a much lesser cost to the law breaker, and the behavioral responses it engenders thus need not to be huge in order to justify punishment (and the surveillance enabling it).
I don't really understand the part on shaming: it's not like a jealous spouse can just mail Zuckerberg and ask for their better half's WA conversations, no? Usually these data are available only to those collecting them, to those who buy them (similarly sized corporations) and to the govt. When public shaming happens, it's either for things that somebody made public themselves (eg tweets), bc it accidentally came to light, or bc it was investigated "the old way" (eg investigative journalists). I don't see how modern surveillance would affect any of those factors.
Privacy also allows people to disobey what is "legal" but not "moral" or "ethical". (Not going to expand on those nebulous words because you are the philosophy bear, not me.) I'd like to hope that just because we have the ability to surveil everyone, and we currently do, and it is currently "accepted", does not mean it always will be.
Hm, but does this argument really work against surveillance per se or only against too high a prosecution rate?
Less surveillance biases who gets prosecuted in favor of smart, resourceful criminals who can hide their crimes. So additional privacy is a regressive tax in terms of prosecution. Wouldn't a "fairer" solution be to have total surveillance and then simply fix a prosecution rate and randomize who gets prosecuted (possibly weighted by the severity of the offense, disregarding other reasons not to have total surveillance, of course)?
I am surprised that Graukroger's list does not include a much more conventional consequentialist argument:
(5): Privacy protects us from being aribitrarily persecuted.
The argument here goes something like:
1. Everone has bad stuff hidden away.
2. Thus everyone could in principle be shamed or persecuted (or even prosecuted).
3. Resource-wise, It is only possible to persecute a fraction of bad deeds.
3. Who and what gets persecuted will likely be determined arbitrarily.
4. Thus in a world without privacy everyone is at risk of arbitrary persecution.
I think the case would be stronger if the main purpose and effect of surveillance was to catch more criminals.
But it's oft not. Red light cameras *might* be used to track robbers, but are mostly used to send tickets to people who... Run red lights!
Sending tickets, after all, has none of the costs to society of jail (in fact it generates revenues), a much lesser cost to the law breaker, and the behavioral responses it engenders thus need not to be huge in order to justify punishment (and the surveillance enabling it).
I don't really understand the part on shaming: it's not like a jealous spouse can just mail Zuckerberg and ask for their better half's WA conversations, no? Usually these data are available only to those collecting them, to those who buy them (similarly sized corporations) and to the govt. When public shaming happens, it's either for things that somebody made public themselves (eg tweets), bc it accidentally came to light, or bc it was investigated "the old way" (eg investigative journalists). I don't see how modern surveillance would affect any of those factors.
Brach = breach?