[LINK] If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear

[Jan Whitaker]

At 10:07 AM 22/07/2012, Kim Holburn wrote:
> >
> > Two ­ It’s not you who determine if you have 
> something to fear: You may consider yourself 
> law-abidingly white as snow, and it won’t 
> matter a bit. What does matter is whether you 
> set off the red flags in the mostly-automated 
> surveillance, where bureaucrats look at your 
> life in microscopic detail through a long paper 
> tube to search for patterns. When you stop your 
> car at the main prostitution street for two 
> hours every Friday night, the Social Services 
> Authority will draw certain conclusions from 
> that data point, and won’t care about the fact 
> that you help your elderly grandmother ­ who 
> lives there ­ with her weekly groceries. When 
> you frequently stop at a certain bar on your 
> way driving home from work, the Department of 
> Driving Licenses will draw certain conclusions 
> as to your eligibility for future driving 
> licenses ­ regardless of the fact that you 
> think they serve the world’s best reindeer 
> meatballs in that bar, and never had had a 
> single beer there. People will stop thinking in 
> terms of what is legal, and start acting in 
> self-censorship to avoid being red-flagged, out 
> of pure self-preservation. (It doesn’t matter 
> that somebody in the right might possibly and 
> eventually be cleared ­ after having been 
> investigated for six months, you will have lost 
> both custody of your children, your job, and possibly your home.)

This one is critical. I watched a TED talk (I 
think it was) where the debate over privacy 
included a law enforcement person, probably a 
detective, who does investigations. Bottom line 
take-away: if you ever find yourself in front of 
a LEO, don't say much of anything but 'have a 
nice day' and call legal representation. His 
point was that you don't have a clue why he or 
she is asking the questions. You don't know if 
YOU are the target or just an innocent 
by-stander. People have an ingrained value, 
generally, to help the community, and police prey 
on that. It's just what they do.

I was quite surprised at his revelation, but if 
you think about it, it makes sense. They are 
there to do a job, not protect YOU. In the main, 
police are nice people. They just view the world 
through a far different lens than us mere mortals 
with little power. And that's why these pushes 
for more and more surveillance and data 
collection (the current ASIO/AFP push) is dangerous.

We live in a crazy mixed up world.

Jan



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the 
world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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