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The Guardian publishes a lengthy but well constructed essay of Eben Moglen, titled "Privacy under attack: the NSA files revealed new threats to democracy". It is one of the most insightful excursion into why privacy matters, why Snowden cannot be considered a traitor; has well picked examples from history; hints about what the civil society could do (my cynical note: if only it'd be interested) to reclaim privacy back. Granted, takes about an hour to read (and probably a lifetime to filter by first-hand experience: unfortunately not the kind of experience one would wish for).
(I dare not write a digest for SN, the essay is so coherent and round that I'm afraid any omission would damage its discourse. Can't do nothing but recommend it for reading: if you can't do on a working say, save the link for the weekend)
(Score: 2) by AndyTheAbsurd on Sunday June 01 2014, @08:45PM
I never said that we shouldn't have government. We need government for a variety of reasons. We also need the ability to look at powerful people in the same way that they look at us, in order to hold them accountable for their actions.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Sunday June 01 2014, @10:23PM
> I never said that we shouldn't have government.
And I never said you did. What you did do was make an argument for giving up on controlling the government.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AndyTheAbsurd on Sunday June 01 2014, @10:54PM
I did not make that argument either. I argued that the idea of "reclaiming our privacy" is ridiculous as long as the tools to violate privacy exist. We need to be able to look BACK at those looking at us - in order to properly chastise them when they are doing something wrong. That includes voting them out of power if they're elected officials (or impeaching them if we can't wait for an election to roll around).
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 1) by Angry Jesus on Sunday June 01 2014, @11:22PM
> I did not make that argument either. I argued that the idea of "reclaiming our privacy" is ridiculous as long as the tools to violate privacy exist.
Since the worst of those tools only work in the hands of a government entity by virtue of requiring widespread backbone access to the internet and shippers it is entirely reasonable to reclaim our privacy from the only group that can use those tools. Your own example was a government agency.
> . We need to be able to look BACK at those looking at us
While that is nice and all, it is orthogonal to the question of whether or not privacy can be reclaimed from government overreach.