From: Adam Shostack <adam@homeport.org>
Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 06:17:49 -0800 (PST)
To: weidai@eskimo.com
Subject: Re: "why privacy" revisited
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.96.970321190549.21129C-100000@eskimo.com>
Message-ID: <199703221413.JAA24753@homeport.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Wei Dai wrote:

| Also, I don't quite understand your first argument.  It seems to suggest
| that privacy should exist for no reason in particular.  If this is the
| case then it doesn't make sense to argue about the costs/benefits of
| privacy. But it is my understanding that most cypherpunks believe more
| privacy benefits everyone, and therefore work to making more privacy for
| everyone.  What I'm looking for are arguments that support this belief.

	Privacy should exist because information is power.
Information about me gives you power over me.  If you don't know my
home address, you can't stalk me as easily.  If you don't know my
phone number, you can't make harrassing phone calls.

	New laws get passed from time to time.  Laws banning behaviors
that were perfectly legal before.  Smoking pot, drinking without the
state's intervention, gambling, buying fertilizer, were all legal and
free at one point.  If todays mechanisms for invading privacy (such as
surveillance cameras, credit card tracking of purchases, etc) were in
place, then the government could have used them to round up thousands
of people, like they did with the Californian Japanese in the second
world war.  They did this via Post Office and IRS records.

	Being Japanese wasn't illegal, but those Japanese who built
privacy into their lives had a chance to move to a less racist state.

	Privacy matters because information is power, and power tends
to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Adam

-- 
"Well, that depends.  Do you mind the end of civilization as we know
it?"