Why internet privacy is important

Here are some thoughts on internet privacy I wrote a few years ago.

The revelations of mass surveillance, brought to light by Edward Snowden in 2013, initiated a heated global debate regarding our online privacy. Many people feel that mass surveillance poses no real threat to them, because they aren’t doing anything wrong and have nothing to hide. Google CEO Eric Schmidt famously said: “If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.” After all, only bad people need to hide what they are doing. By building upon proven observations of human nature, and then analysing the implications this point of view imposes, we will see why this argument is perverse and why we must protect our society from mass surveillance.

We all instinctively crave privacy. We need the opportunity to escape the judgmental view of others; the reason being that we do have things to hide: feelings, opinions, beliefs, judgments, interests, etc. If not we wouldn’t have locks on our doors and we wouldn’t mind expressing our deepest feelings or eccentric opinions in public. When we are being watched we make decisions that conform to social norms and we are therefore not expressing our true identity. The Internet is intended to be a tool of liberation, where everyone is free to speak their mind and share with the entire world anonymously sans judgement, but mass surveillance is changing that. Because we act in a socially acceptable manner when being watched, mass surveillance is encaging our minds, crushing the freedom we used to exert, and coercing us into conformity.

People who believe “only bad people have something to hide” tend to have a very limited view on what a “bad person” is. Many think of terrorists, offenders, or high-level drug dealers. But to a power-holding entity such as a government, a bad person is anyone who challenges the execution of its power. This is why mass surveillance poses a particular threat to journalists and activists, who are a fundamental component of any democratic system. “The measure of how free a society is not how it treats its good, obedient, compliant citizens, but how it treats its dissidents and those who resist orthodoxy” (Glenn Greenwald).

Mass surveillance is a sabotage of our expressive freedom and an impairment of our democratic society. As more and more aspects of our lives depend on the Internet (for good or for bad), we cannot allow the government to use it as an eagle eye into our personal lives. If we do we risk converging into a homogenous society such as those in Brave New World or 1984. A diverse, contrasted, and somewhat conflicting society is a critical aspect of humanity because it is evidence of prosperous individuality. Ultimately, removing privacy will remove individuality, and removing individuality will remove humanity.