Privacy vs. Secrecy
By: James Burge
September 18th, 2008
So I just read the story about how some hacker got into the US Republican Vice-Presidential Nominee Sarah Palin’s personal email (although apparently used for government purposes as well, which seems kinda shady since I thought they are supposed to keep track of all communication regarding government issues). I couldn’t help but see this as just desserts. The US government has recently decided that it is above the law and does not require probably cause (used to get a warrant) in order to snoop on its citizens (no, not China, not Russia, the USA). What has occurred to Sara Palin is what is continuously happening to countless Americans, the worst part is it’s happening without their knowledge and without reason; otherwise, the warrant should be easily obtained. If it is no big deal, as is the case the government has tried make regarding this unconstitutional domestic spying program, then why can’t we see their email?
What makes government secrecy more important than personal privacy?
This program was introduced under the guise of National Security and the ‘War on Terror,’ playing off the fear created on September 11th 2001 in order to introduce policy that would never have passed in the Pre-9/11 world (for more on this read The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein). In a democracy, the government is said to work for ‘(we) the people,’ this in theory makes us their boss, which by the same logic should allow us to oversee all aspects of government, especially interventionist foreign policy. However, the current state of affairs is much different, instead they have the ability to read our e-mails, listen in on our phone calls, and obtain record on what websites we view, what books we check out of the library (seriously!!!) and of course financial records.
To me, the direction of information flow seems counter-intuitive, given the formal theory behind democracy. But nothing affects public opinion quite like fear. In this case, the fear that extremists are training here at home to hijack the American democracy because they hate freedom. Actually that is one of the few statement with which I agree, just not how you would think. Most would assume that I am talking about Muslim extremists planning terrorist attacks, nothing could be farther from the truth. In my opinion, it is the politicians who are the extremists, and if allowed to continue their interventionist domestic policy, the America of the future will be unrecognizable to the America that was founded some 232 years ago (thanks wiki answers) in direct response to the oppression felt by the Founding Fathers from the ruling class in Britain, they’ve just traded one oppressor for another.
Now some would say, ‘if you aren’t doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.’ That is complete and utter bullshit, and an argument that is best summed up in ‘I’ve Got Nothing to Hide’ and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy by Daniel Solove. This basically says the argument is flawed because it treats privacy as the protection of something unlawful, which it is not.
