1. Glenn GreenWald The importance of Privacy

Source: Ted Talk 

This is question or statement can definitely be qualified as a classic right now! 

I've been telling people similar things for years. I always get the "If the government wants to watch my boring life, then go ahead?" but what they don't realize is even the smallest amounts of information en mass can create things like extreme market advantage, or social engineering cues, and even more.

'll tell you why privacy matters.

Imagine if the Catholic Church or other monarchies a few centuries ago had the sheer surveillance capabilities our governments have today, and all of our thoughts were known to them... We'd have had none of the religious/cultural reformations or political revolutions as those things would have easily been squashed before they were to get "out of hand", and imagine where the world would be compared to where it is now (No Western World period). 

Now imagine our own generation's revolutions and reformations that COULD have happened decades from now, are now, quite frankly, impossible. This is now our future. Total surveillance. Any attempt to change it and you will easily be detected and your movement squashed. Our generation will not feel the full brunt of this incredible power, but a few generations down the road will, and, truly, as you said, god have mercy on them, as their minds will be under the full control of the establishment. Just a few generations from now, no one will not know what it truly means to be free.

Excellent talk. I may not be doing anything wrong or illegal, but what I do is still my business and nobody else's. And that IS the point. It's not about having anything to hide. It's about that my lawful thoughts, feelings, and activities are NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS and I reserve the right to share these with whomever I want and for whatever reason I want, be it an arbitrary reason or not. And as for the reasons? Those too are MY BUSINESS. Privacy matters, people.

Glenn Greenwald brings up several good points in this speech. Personally, the idea that the government may be watching your every step mortifies me. The fact that they don’t even trust their inhabitants enough, that they have to be on constant look out for you. Glenn also brings up the good point that everyone, even if they aren’t a bad person, have things to hide. For example, would you be willing to be under surveillance if you were on the toilet? What about when you’re having an intimate time with your spouse? Granted, a rare minority may enjoy this, but majority of us don’t. Which is why it was surprising to me when Glenn brought up the idea that people actually say that they don’t have anything to hide. As he said, if you had nothing to hide, you would be able to share your personal thoughts, and your deepest secrets with the first stranger you meet. As such, I agree immensely with Glenn in his views in this speech. 

I agree with the speaker as he is one of the few that links ‘privacy’ to big companies that are enforcing and changing social media norms, as well as the loss of human creativity when being put in a ‘jail’ of one’s own mind.

He states that the conclusion drawn from the sentence are that the only people needing privacy are the people that do bad things. He also states that there are two variations of ‘people that do bad things’ – one would be like plotting a terrorist attack and causing harm to civilians and the other to someone who wields great power would be someone who pose threats and challenges to the exercising of their power.

I fully believe that privacy should remain every one’s right and we should not be cast into a social norm where online privacy does not matter and where people who are put in power can abuse the thought of the masses and shape messages to influence and lull you into obedience.

After watching the video, I strongly agree with the speaker. Firstly, I agree that bad people are not the only ones with things to hide and that even good people feel the need to protect their privacy. I feel that this is because no one is perfect and thus we would always have something to hide. We all want to escape to a place where there are no judemental eyes and to be able to do whatever we want freely without the constant fear of someone watching us. The speaker also mentioned that when watched, our behaviour changes drastically. I agree with this and feel that we tend to be more cautious when we know that someone is keeping an eye on us and I think that we behave this way because we are afraid of doing something which could be seen as strange or wrong to others. Despite knowing that it is impossible to be perfect and we could make mistakes, we always want to be perfect and thus afraid to make a single mistake.

I agree with Glenn Greenwald about why privacy matters. I believe that everyone have their own secret that they want to hide from others whether it is a small secret or a big secret. We need privacy so that we can do things the way we want to and not what others expect. Living in this society, people often judge others so we need that privacy to be ‘free’. I used to think that it is alright for people to invade your privacy as long as you do not do anything bad. But now I understand that we all need our privacy and not necessarily to do bad things. I strongly agree that when we are being watched or monitored, our behaviour changes dramatically as we want to show others only our best side or what society want us to be. Therefore, privacy matters as it is the only place we get to be ourselves.