Why does privacy matter?

One of the questions a number of people have posed to me is, “Don’t only those who have something to hide need to worry?” To this I offer some sad reminders of history that are probably best summarized in Martin Niemöller’s famous poem about those who came for the communists, Jews and socialists, and his inaction on these occasions leading to the time when they came for him; and how there was no one left to stand up for him. It’s a statement about solidarity against power but it’s also a statement about privacy. Some group affiliations are obvious (race and gender being examples) while others are less so (sexual orientation, religion, political affiliation). All of these have been (or currently are being) used by those in power (or seeking power) to exclude, intimidate, attack or marginalize group who oppose them. Here in the United States, having the name Mohamed on Sept. 10^th 2001 wouldn’t have bothered too many people in the US. It certainly wouldn’t have caused any extra scrutiny in your life. All of that would have change in less than 24 hrs. The cautionary tale here is that even those who feel they don’t have anything to hide can find that they do have something about them that they don’t wish to be public if circumstances change.

A society without privacy will almost certainly regress to a set of accepted social norms. Those in that society then face the challenge or deciding if they want to try and change those social norms (which invariably has a high cost to your own self in matters of persecution, intimidation as well as possible imprisonment or death). Few people are willing to undertake such sacrifice, and thus how the social norms can be enforced. If you do not want a diverse society, this indeed may seem like a benefit; at least until the society decides that you are now part of those who are unaffiliated with its new social norm. Think that can’t happen; look at Jews in Germany circa 1930 v 1940, look at the Japanese in the US over the same period.

Many things are changing in our world. With the growth of our surveillance society, and the changing nature of what is considered constitutionally protected; not to mention the growth of data collation technology in the hands of private parties, we will all face a set of questions around privacy in our lives that previous generations never had to face. Those issues will range from when a police officer can search you, to how long a company can keep records of where you went on the Internet. We will all live more public lives than any other generation in history whether we like it or not. We all do things that some day we may not want to be reminded of, let alone have available to the public (for me I think some of my college stunts and Jr. High clothing selections fall into a slightly innocuous, though no less serious, collection of things I’d rather keep private). In any event, since employers have started to run background checks (including credit checks) on employees, the government is looking at library checkouts and advertising companies are monitoring what websites you go to; you may want to ask yourself, "Is this information I really want anyone/everyone to have?" If your answer is the predictable, “No, it’s private” then you grasp why privacy is important.