Wednesday, December 31, 2014

to skin a cat

Richard Posner: Privacy is "Mainly" About Concealing Guilty Behavior
[...] “Much of what passes for the name of privacy is really just trying to conceal the disreputable parts of your conduct,” Posner added. “Privacy is mainly about trying to improve your social and business opportunities by concealing the sorts of bad activities that would cause other people not to want to deal with you.”

King George agreed with Posner.  One hopes Posner is not now similarly suffering from Porphyria. In response, belatedly, the Fourth amendment to the United States constitution.  After George III, before Posner:


The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Clearly, B. Franklin  was trying to hide his dalliances with the ladies, and the French.  G. Washington certainly was growing more than tobacky up in Mount Vernon, T. Jefferson had personal problem and lord only knows what else needed concealing from the Redcoats - and the neighbors!

Posner excreted this opinion in reference to electronic privacy in the United States. 

If the government of ANY country or nation subscribes to all of the information sources provided by private companies IN that country or nation, the people therein would be a open book.   Everything.   There is no hiding.   There is no privacy.  

Posner says, "It's great!" and strokes his cat.  He takes a cat selfie.  For posterity.   It's how he'll be remembered.  He has nothing to conceal - AND NOTHING TO SAY.  This is how you become a statesman in the USA in this century.

Computers can uniquely identify all of us (at a scale of 1 in 20 billion) through a myriad of ways - our car, our mobile, our shamble, our typing patterns, our word usage, and so on.  It is technically possible to store all of this information about everyone, forever.

If a given government is permitted to utilize this information in aggregate, there will be no personal freedom, much less privacy, for anyone, forever.