Andrew Fiola

CST 373
15 February 2015
On Privacy
My views on privacy arestrange, to say the least, and possibly not entirely consistent.
Perhaps the best summation of them can be gleaned from an online conversation I had not too
long ago. I was chatting with a friend about the pros and cons of various online video game
services, and my friend pointed out that the end-user license agreement of one such service
essentially gave its owners the right to scan my entire hard drive at will. I responded with a joke
to the effect of hey, if they want to look through my porn collection, theyre welcome to it.
Giving this giant, faceless corporation the theoretical right to look through my personal files was
essentially a non-issue to me. Same for the NSA, or any of the ten thousand other agencies or
other entities supposedly trying to spy on me at any given time. But then, a moment after that
(well, actually just now, but lets pretend it was immediately after the conversation for dramatic
effect), I looked around at my carefully closed window blinds, at the shut door to my room, at
the various electronic devices I was careful to keep locked and password-protected whenever I
didnt have immediate access. And then I thought about how Im always reluctant to let anyone
use my computer, and how careful I am to wipe my browser history when I do. I thought about
how reluctant I am to even let people in my room. If I really dont care about maintaining my
privacy, why did I care about these things?
I grew up in what I consider to be a fairly privileged household. I am white, of varied
European descent. My family is Catholic and upper-middle-class; my parents are together, and I
have one younger sister. Save for a year or so spent sharing a room with my sister in a fairly

spacious apartment, I always had my own room; its difficult for me to say whether having my
own dedicated space made me more or less sensitive to privacy-related matters. On the one hand,
always having that space to myself may have created a certain expectation of privacy; on the
other, it may have made it more difficult for me to understand how it feels to lack privacy. All in
all, I ascribe little of my current views on privacy to those circumstances due to the far more
obvious and profound effects of one major factor.
That critical factor is my view of truth. Growing up, I gradually became aware of a key
difference between myself and many of the people I knew: generally speaking, I did not tell lies.
This was by no means absolutely true; certainly I lied by omission to avoid trouble a few times,
and occasionally I made an attempt at outright lyingbut even then it was so unusual that I
rarely managed to make it sound believable. To me, it simply seemed natural that one should
always tell the truth, even at cost to oneself. As I matured, I came to realize that defaulting to the
truth was not always the best course of actiontelling a depressed and potentially suicidal friend
that yes, their life looks pretty hopeless right now is a terrible idea, for instancebut even today
I generally prefer to present as accurate an account as possible to people asking one of me. (This
has proven to be something of an obstacle when trying to make my rsum sound impressive!) I
also believe that in general terms, the search for truth and the rejection of falsehood is one of the
most important things we as humans can aspire to.
I think it is this personality trait, this belief in the importance of truth, which has shaped
my views on privacyboth online and offmore than anything else in my life. Since there are
few things I would hide about myself if asked about them by most people (and even then I would
prefer saying Id rather not discuss that to an outright lie), the need for privacy on certain
aspects of ones personal life seems to me to be the exception rather than the rule. My first

instinct when people complain about the possibility of the NSA reading their e-mails is thus
well, what are you saying in those e-mails that makes you so afraid of the NSA reading them?
At the same time, however, I recognize now that many people do have a great deal to lose if their
privacy is compromised. Homophobia is still widespread throughout this country and the world,
for example, and a closeted homosexual person thus might be at risk of losing their career or
becoming the target of hate crimes should their secret be revealed. And indeed, as Ive become
an adult Ive found that there are now things about me that Id rather people I know and care
about did not find out, because I worry that it would change how they see me for the worse.
That is the primary motivation I can understand for the desire for privacy: people care
about their reputation. And from that perspective, I can certainly understand why people who are
often in the public eye would want as much privacy as possiblea politician or a celebrity has to
worry about their reputation being judged by far more people than I would ever want to worry
about. That said, I would argue the soundest course of action would be to simply not do whatever
it is that you believe would harm your reputation in the first place! And in cases where no such
action has been done, or if there is little chance of it being revealed to the public (such as private
information being collected by the NSA), I still dont quite comprehend why privacy is held to
be so important.
This may make my views on privacy seem rather contradictory! Do I believe in the
necessity of privacy, or dont I? To be honest, Im not entirely sure myself. But I think that if I
were to boil them down to a single consistent view, I would say that privacy is only a necessity
when it is, in fact, necessary. If, by keeping something private you do no harm and prevent
unjust harm to yourself or others, then you have the right to do so. If not? Well, I do not
automatically condone invasions of privacy, but I would say that in those cases privacy is no

longer a right but a privilege, and that if that privilege must be temporarily revokedby law
enforcement, or journalists, or anyone with something at stake in the matter in questionfor the
purpose of preventing harm to others, so be it. I also think that who you are keeping things
private from is as important as what you are keeping private. To return to the NSA example
NSA employees may be reading your private love letters or something, but does that really
matter? How does that actually harm you? And if you dont take the effort to keep something
private, if you post something in a potentially public location such as a social media website, I
believe you should be held responsible for the consequences of that information being released.
Some would argue that privacy and anonymity are necessary to guarantee freedom of
speech. After all, a totalitarian government can only crack down on speech it does not approve of
it if it is capable of identifying and locating the people producing it. I would respond that while
the two issues are related, loss of privacy and anonymity does not necessarily imply a loss of
freedom of speech. Indeed, curbs on privacy and anonymity can even enhance freedom of
speech, by making it easier to hold accountable those who use anonymity as a tool to silence
those they do not agree with. It is true that a state that is attempting to suppress freedom of
speech would seek to reduce its citizens privacy to the greatest extent possible, but the latter
does not automatically lead to the former. There is one important issue here, however: if the
government invades a persons private life in violation of the Fourth Amendment (or some
equivalent legislation in another country), this does represent a violation of legally guaranteed
rights, whether or not it causes distress to the person in questionand in doing so raises the
question of whether other legally guaranteed rights the government is willing to violate. Whether
the data-collection techniques of the NSA or FBI do in fact violate the Fourth Amendment is a

question for someone with far more legal education than I have, but I must admit it doesnt look
good.
Ultimately, I can respect peoples desire for privacy, but I think it is far less of a right or
necessity than many believe it to be. Many people may well have good reasons to keep certain
matters private, but privacy for privacys sake accomplishes little except to further foster distrust
between person and person, between citizens and their government, and between nation and
nation. On the other hand, if a government does legally guarantee some kind of right to privacy,
it should be held to that guaranteenot because privacy itself is sacred, but because violating it
is a grievous breach of trust between that government and its citizens.