“If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.”
I can already hear the bleating: “if you’ve nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to fear.”
This is a popular sentiment anytime the subject of privacy or government overreach comes up. In fact, it might even seem like a reasonable position to hold, until you take a closer look …
It most commonly attributed to Joseph Goebbels, propaganda minister for the Nazi third Reich in 1933.
I also found a version in Upton Sinclair’s 1918 The Profits of Religion: An Essay in Economic Interpretation:
“Not merely was my own mail opened, but the mail of all my relatives and friends — people residing in places as far apart as California and Florida. I recall the bland smile of a government official to whom I complained about this matter: ‘If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.’”
This particular piece of tripe pretty much paints a picture that folks appear to have been aware of for a long, long time, namely: A surveillance state can piece together benign information to create a very different picture and story.
Daniel Solove explored this in an article titled “‘I’ve Got Nothing to Hide’ and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy.”
35 pages; here’s a highlight: a quote from author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn summarized the main point fairly well:
“Everyone is guilty of something or has something to conceal. All one has to do is look hard enough to find what it is.”
In other words, it doesn’t really matter if you think you don’t have anything to hide. Because what you view as an innocent activity could be viewed as criminal behavior — or even “thought crimes” — by some small-minded government tyrant.
Let’s go further: Former US National Security Agency (NSA) consultant Edward Snowden found out that our own government was breaking the laws and spying on the public. And what happened when he released this information? Do you remember the government propaganda?
“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different from saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”
— Edward Snowden, US government whistleblower, and former NSA worker
How about Julian Assange? The Violation of Espionage Act — obtaining and sharing classified information was one of the charges levied against him after he found TONS of wrongdoing by the government-instead of hanging our politicians and FBI, we allowed the bad guys to go after him. (Isn’t that neat? Obtaining proof of the government’s illegal activities is espionage, since it is classified information that the public is not supposed to see.)
Not even going to go into Epstein’s suicide in an empty cell where the cameras mysteriously failed, the tapes are missing, the guards disappeared at EXACTLY the time he was able to hang himself even though he had nothing to put around his neck (he was on suicide watch), nothing to hang from, and the SECOND coroner found his injuries more consistent with being strangled.
Ghislain Maxine’s upcoming unforeseen suicide is going to be a similar tragedy. John McAfee also committed suicide …
See, you don’t just have to worry about data collection. You have to worry about how the government will use it against you. The dossier that is created on you will not be available to you should such a thing be done to you.
Let’s say you happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time by no fault of your own. You could be connected to a crime scene even if you didn’t know about it based on the dossier prepared by the government.
Do you really trust the government with your private data even if you don’t have anything to hide? Take a look at the local DMV if you want a shining example of the folks that are going to be deciding your fate.
The Rutherford Institute recently published an article that described how the “security state” is watching everything you do. Everything.
These are just five of many ways you could find yourself on the State’s “naughty list” even if you don’t want to. And they will not bother to check it twice.
Health. Authorities could make life difficult for you through Fitbits, virus tests, and drug-sniffing dogs that can identify when you are sick. Insurance companies would heap a LOT of cash if they could just get access to your fitness information (maybe even through a passport of some type-this wouldn’t be legal under HIPAA, of course, but if the information was given VOLUNTARILY, say, in order to travel or eat out or something …)
Facial recognition. When you go out in public, Clearview AI might take a picture of you and store it in the FBI’s database. The same program compiles photos of your life story from your social media posts. Of course, we pretty much put that information out to the viewscreens anyway.
Your phone and its camera. Rutherford’s article claimed: “Cell phones are becoming de facto snitches.” What is worse is that authorities may not require a warrant to search your phone. What about that camera? It can be hacked and seen whatever the camera sees.
CryptoPhone500 users discovered the fake towers known as “interceptors” in July, after Edward Snowden released his leaks about the NSA snooping. I suspect were are about to see a rash of folks disappearing and/or suicides.
The people you know and the information that gets shared between both networks. You connect your network to theirs any time you call, text, or use social media to communicate with someone.
Any of your connections might commit a crime (without your knowledge), and you could be questioned about it — even if you did nothing wrong. Do you REALLY want to be questioned by an all-powerful agency that is looking for a fast kill as far as finding a bad guy?
Tried and true physical mail. During the past two decades, the U.S. Postal Service has taken a picture of your mail and stored it in a database for future use.
The Rutherford Institute finished with “Big Tech wedded to Big Government has become Big Brother.”
Even if you’re an honest person, the sheer amount of information that “Big Brother” has on you can make your life a living hell.
The only thing it would take is an idiotic bureaucrat in a dusty office to create a profile about you as part of a criminal investigation (or mistaken identity). Shoot, I know of a fake breaking and entering charge placed on a husband during a divorce. Thrown out, totally false.
But when he tried to return to the US from Canada on a business trip a few years later, well, our bureaucratic Customs wouldn’t let him in; seems they didn’t bother to read Page #2 where the charges had been dismissed. As far as they were concerned Page #1 said “Arrested for …” and that’s all they needed. He missed his flight, spent thousands of dollars to get a new one, spent several days trying to get it fought out.
In fact, I’ll give you another specific example concerning the “nothing to hide, nothing to fear”: One of the reasons this statement is demonstrably false is, regrettably, due to a conversation I had with a police buddy of mine back in college.
We both were somewhat inebriated, but his comment was, and I quote: “I am looking to catch somebody. It’s up to somebody else as to whether or not he or she is the bad guy.” Anyone who has ever gone to court over anything knows that the reverberations -even if you are not guilty-can last for years.
Politicians have been imprisoning scapegoats and innocent men since the dawn of the written word.
The general consensus, at least in the computer Community, is that the average person breaks seven federal laws a day whether they realize it or not.
Let me give you another example of why you SHOULD have something to fear.
A friend of mine was in Myrtle Beach several years ago. There was a shooting, and somebody got killed. He and his family had been up near Ocean Isle Beach for the past day or so for a picnic.
When the police were interviewing people, he told them that he was in Ocean Isle Beach.
No problem. Until one of the other Witnesses said that they thought they saw somebody who matched my friend’s description down in Myrtle Beach during the time of the shooting. He was mid twenties, brown hair, Caucasian, around 5’ 8′ ‘ or so. You know, the exact type who would drastically stand out at a beach.
Bang.
In one sentence, it now looks like my friend was lying, and he went under suspicion for murder.
It was that simple.
They made his life pure hell for the better part of three and a half weeks, tore up his house and his car, interviewed everybody who knew him including his parents and bosses, until surveillance cameras showed them that he wasn’t even close to the shooter profile. Which they could have done at the onset.-BUT THEY DIDN’T.
His wife left him, custody of kids gone. The whole community wouldn’t talk to him, even after he was exonerated.
He ended up getting fired over it. Obviously, a company does not want to have a suspected murderer working for them in sales.
So, I guess if you are not scared stupid of the power that your government has to ruin you, (and the absolute blasé’ attitude toward being accurate) well, you’re just not really paying attention.
And, it just and, it just now occurred to me … Why would the government need to conduct Mass surveillance on ME unless THEY had something to fear?
Can I tell you in confidence? It IS the government that has everything to fear. Sshhhh, don’t let the feds know we’re onto them, have no trust or faith in them either.