I found this on Reddit.com, which contained the link to wired.com. How many times have you heard someone say, “If you’ve got nothing to hide, then why do you care whether the government is spying. Bruce Schneier at Wired assembled these well-considered responses:
“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 custodes ipsos? (“Who watches the watchers?”) and “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
The abuse of our information is what is troubling. I don't recall the link but there is a report of what we buy (medicines, birth control etc.) influencing our credit scores and insurance rates. This is outrageous. Its this constant guessing about that we do, how its perceived and how it might be used against us that privacy is all about.
Pat
One disturbing problem is the cross-referencing of government and private databases. Here is a cenario that demonstrates the problem.
Imagine that there is a private citizen in Atlanta named Hershel Schmittou, who goes to get his driver's license renewed. After waiting in line at the DMV for 2 hours, Mr Schmittou is told that the state of Michigan has issued a "hold" on his license. Since Mr Schmittou has never been to Michigan, he doesn't understand how this could be. He is given the number of the Michigan DMV so he can straighten it out. He goes home, having missed most of a days work, calls the number and is promptly placed on hold. An hour and twenty minutes later someone gets to his call, and informs him that he will have to call back on Monday, as the office is now closed.
He calls back Monday morning and after several tries and 3 hours wasted, he manages to get a clerk who looks up his name on the computer, and checks the birth date for verification. It become apparent that there is another Hershal Schmittou in Michigan with the same birth date. It turns out that that Michigan Schmittou has 47 outstanding warrants against him for things like DUI, driving without a license, reckless driving. The Atlantean Schmittou, on the other hand has been a model citizen, doesn't drink alcohol because he donated a kidney to his sister years earlier, and the only offenses he had ever had were to overtime parking tickets, which he promptly paid. After being forwarded through several switchboards, he talks to someone in the Michigan state attorney generals office, who insists that he should turn himself in, pay several thousand dollars in fines and spend 6 months in the Michigan prison system.
Hershel consults a lawyer, who recommends a private investigator. After a week, the PI returns from Michigan with copies of the vital records of the other Schmittou, Birth certificate, marriage certificate, divorce decree, death certificate.
DEATH CERTIFICATE!!!!
Yep. The Michigan Schmittou had died six months earlier. Using this evidence, the charges are dropped and the hold is released, and Schmittou gets his licenses, and is relieved that it's all over.
Two months later, he starts receiving letters from the New York department of Children's services demanding payment of child support to his ex-wife in Buffalo. Apparently the Schmittou in Michigan was quite a deadbeat as well as a drunk. He also starts getting harassing phone calls from a dozen different collection agencies demanding payment on on the dead guys bills.
and it gets worse…..