I understand people will go far lengths to protect their privacy but with the internet once you have a email they probably have a good idea about you already, and unless you are doing something with malicious intent the government probably (hopefully) doesn’t really care, so why is it such a huge thing?
In: 22
What you don’t understand is what they can track, extrapolate, predict, and influence with that data.
I will keep recommending this documentary on Netflix : The Great Hack. It’s about a company called Cambridge Analytica
Who knows what today is deemed legal that tomorrow is illegal
Look at china and its highly policed good citizen point system overseen by blanket cctv coverage and tracking via GPS.
And don’t think the west isn’t:
– feeding that beast
– observing and learning
In addition to the extreme 1984 “get disappeared and reeducated” scenarios people have mentioned (which is still quite common in many places in the world) there are also a lot of psychological tactics used to discredit people.
For instance, when a viral video surfaces of someone being abused/killed by police, police departments will immediately look to police records of the victim to discredit them. They’ll point out that George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, etc. were criminals and some people will actually take the bait and basically say that they were bad people and therefore deserved what they got.
Another instance would be to look at COINTELPRO. While the FBI did in some cases straight up assassinate influential people (Fred Hampton comes to mind) they also ran an incredible disinformation campaign against the Black Panthers, anti-Vietnam protestors, socialists, and labor movements in order to sway public opinion and to keep these groups from achieving a critical mass.
Often when one person is involved in something unsavory, they are used as an example to discredit the whole. For instance, if one member of the Black Panthers was a pedophile, the FBI would leak and publicize that information and try to discredit the entire Black Panther party on that singular premise. While this ultimately speaks to a greater issue (people should not be so easily manipulated) it’s nonetheless true that collecting personal information can and will be weaponized.
Or if you really want an ELI5 answer: Why not use the same logic to argue that police should just have a key to your door and come and go periodically to make sure everything is okay? The police say they won’t steal anything and if you’re not doing anything wrong then nothing bad will happen to you.
Until government becomes uncorrurptable, then any power it has over you will be corrupted at some point.
Like guns, live in America, and want to exercise your right to own an object that you have no intention of ever using on other people? Better be careful with what officials know you have. (See Nazi Germany, Russia at various points in the last century, or almost any dictatorship and the resulting civilian deaths and economic upheavals that followed)
Need an abortion? It would be a real shame if someone in the government didn’t want you to have one and also had the ability to track you, your location, or your menstrual cycle. (See some current U.S. states)
The degree of manipulation they have over the collective from data mining is more than concerning, it’s criminal. Combine it with A.I. and it will be a weapon that could enslave. With all the cooky apocalypse theories out there…this one is actually on the table
“unless you are doing something with malicious intent the government probably (hopefully) doesn’t really care”
There is literally NOTHING, let me repeat NOTHING that you are doing that the government would ever ignore.
People used to be called “paranoid” because “they” were “listening.”
Guess what?
Those people were absolutely 100% NOT paranoid, and were being surveilled.
It’s a small step from “Likes to look at pictures of people at the beach” to “CP.”
You get tagged on the wrong post, and your ass is grass.
It’s like you’re at your friend’s house and your friend owns a firearm. No big deal, right? Your friend is cool and you generally get along with him, so you’re not worried about being in his house knowing that there’s a gun somewhere in the house.
But one day while you’re hanging out with your friend, he says he wants to keep the gun on the table in the room with you while you hang out. Kinda strange, but no big deal I guess. You let him keep it there.
But sometime later when you’re hanging out, he says he wants to just hold the gun while you guys hang out. Again, kinda weird, but your friend swears the gun is unloaded anyway, so you let him because it’s his house so you say ok.
And then one day, you find out that when you’re hanging out with your friend and he’s always holding his gun, that it’s actually been loaded for quite some time, he just never told you. “But bro, it’s not like I’d ever point the gun at you or out my finger on the trigger”. And you just accept that he’s right and even though it makes you a little uncomfortable, you just accept it because you know it won’t go any further than that.
But then one day, your friend says that, just for scientific purposes, he wants to be able to point his loaded gun at you any time you guys are hanging out. “But bro, you’re my bro and I love you, so like, you know you’re not at any risk, even if I’m pointing a loaded gun at you the whole time. Why would I ever put you in harm’s way?” And then to solidify your trust in him, he reminds you that he can hold the gun just fine without putting his finger on the trigger, so you can trust that he’ll never tell you that he wants to put his finger on the trigger while pointing his loaded gun at you.
At what point do you start wondering why your friend is constantly pushing the boundaries on a risky situation? At what point do you start to recognize that it might be only a few weeks before your friend tells you that holding the gun is a little more comfortable if he can rest his trigger finger on the trigger of the loaded gun that he is pointing at you? At what point do you start to question your friend’s motives and intentions? Even if he has no I’ll intentions, what’s the point of pointing yourself in a position where a simple accident could occur by your friend sneezing and accidentally pulling the trigger while pointing a loaded gun at you?
That’s the problem with the govt collecting information and increasing surveillance. Each time, they swear they’re not up to anything, but each time they change a policy or start utilizing new technology, they move one step closer to a very precarious position, one which seems unnecessary to begin with and which makes you question their intentions more and more each time.
Here’s an experiment: If you aren’t concerned about people reading your emails because you have nothing to hide, go to your email right now, make a copy of the last 500 emails or so and respond to my comment with them. If you do not want to do this, ask yourself why. And if you don’t do this, would it be fair for me to assume you’re hiding wrongdoing?
Latest Answers