> will I someday be prosecuted for the news articles I read or the songs I listen to or my amazon purchases or my google searches? I guess maybe, but that is a HUGE maybe.
Perhaps you aren't vulnerable, but there are many who are. What if you are Muslim or interested in Islam? LGBTQ in a small town? And do we know who will be in power and what the risks will be 20 years from now? We can't wait until someone starts to abuse power; it will be too late to stop them.
Also, I think the parent greatly underestimates the risks of abuses of power. Read the history of the civil rights movement, for example, when the U.S. government tried to blackmail Martin Luther King, or conducted COINTELPRO. People feel vulnerable to this day; when U.S. government mass surveillance became public recently, evidence showed that people began self-censoring their searches.
Finally, one reason many in the West feel safe is that institutions were built to protect against abuse of power. There is nothing genetically different about Western leaders that makes them less prone to abusing it. For example, a military coup in the U.S. might seem very unlikely; one reason for that is the structure of the defense institutions are designed to prevent it, partly based on what happened with the German military before WWII.
What are we doing to protect and provide freedom to the next generations, as our predecessors did for us?
> most of the data collection benefits us all in at least some small way
You may feel that way, but shouldn't people be able to disagree and have a choice?
People definitely should have a choice and I acknowledged that niche security products do exist--and if they were ever threatened I would be concerned.
I didn't mean to be so inflammatory, but I think the premise of the article -- that we should be rolling our own servers as opposed to using cloud computing systems -- is a ridiculous one. By the author's line of thinking we should probably start encrypting our handwritten thank you notes to our grand parents for no other reason than maintaining our privacy.
I never said that it should be illegal for someone to seek privacy, but I do believe that the article advocates a silly solution.
> I never said that it should be illegal for someone to seek privacy
I'm not talking about legality (though that is important); I mean that typical end users should have an option, a practical way to have privacy and function in the real world.
For example, someone looking for a job often needs Facebook and LinkedIn; they have no option.
> for no other reason than maintaining our privacy
I believe privacy is important, as a thing itself and not as a direct means to an end, to more people than you think.
Perhaps you aren't vulnerable, but there are many who are. What if you are Muslim or interested in Islam? LGBTQ in a small town? And do we know who will be in power and what the risks will be 20 years from now? We can't wait until someone starts to abuse power; it will be too late to stop them.
Also, I think the parent greatly underestimates the risks of abuses of power. Read the history of the civil rights movement, for example, when the U.S. government tried to blackmail Martin Luther King, or conducted COINTELPRO. People feel vulnerable to this day; when U.S. government mass surveillance became public recently, evidence showed that people began self-censoring their searches.
Finally, one reason many in the West feel safe is that institutions were built to protect against abuse of power. There is nothing genetically different about Western leaders that makes them less prone to abusing it. For example, a military coup in the U.S. might seem very unlikely; one reason for that is the structure of the defense institutions are designed to prevent it, partly based on what happened with the German military before WWII.
What are we doing to protect and provide freedom to the next generations, as our predecessors did for us?
> most of the data collection benefits us all in at least some small way
You may feel that way, but shouldn't people be able to disagree and have a choice?