Arse-puckering news out of the U.K. recently. Noteworthy articles can be found (here) and (here). In a nutshell, there are plans in the works to allow government and law enforcement entities to collect, catalog, and monitor personal information from various internet services including instant messaging, gaming, and social networking sites. It should come as no surprise that the idea of someone looking over their shoulder the whole time they're online pisses a lot of people off, but this isn't the only reason to worry about this kind of surveillance.

Now I'm not saying that it's not important, but I'm going to try to sidestep the whole George Orwell/1984/Big Brother side of the discussion. Issues of privacy as a fundamental right are absolutely important, but the first thing anyone ever points out is that this kind on monitoring of the public is a slippery slope into an Orwellian dystopia. So for shits and giggles (and a brief thought experiment) let's assume that your government loves you, terrorists really are using Facebook to plot global annihilation, and this proposed project has nothing to do with targeting legitimate political dissent and freedom of speech. Warm and fuzzy? Off we go...

I'll start with the two main arguments I hear whenever I talk to someone about this kind of thing:

1.) "Isn't catching terrorists more important than personal privacy?" and

2.) "If I don't have anything to hide, why should I care?"

The answers to these two questions are "No" and "You're an idiot." respectively.

Take a few seconds to think about all the leaks of personal information that have found their way into the press in the last few years. If nothing comes to mind, I'll provide a few examples. AOL accidentally/on purpose released millions of search queries. A hack of TJX resulted in data from millions of credit card transactions being stolen and used for identity theft. Bank of America lost data tapes containing personal information on over a million federal employees. I could go on, but you know how to use Google too. My point is personal data gets lost or stolen all the time resulting in enormous problems of identity theft and fraud. This leads to headaches, hassles, and great expense to those whose identities are stolen and the companies targeted by fraudulent activity. Even if the data collected is protected from hacking and theft and not lost somewhere, there's always the question of "Who watches the watchers?" Despite what you would be lead to believe, the people who would have access to such data aren't necessarily guaranteed to adhere to the highest moral and ethical standards. This kind of database is sure to collect data that isn't illegal but private enough that people wouldn't want it made public, leading to the possibility of blackmail and stalking. Consider what a grudge-holding ex-boyfriend with access to this kind of database might be capable of. Or maybe some embarrassing detail about a political figure could be used to influence public policy.

So shouldn't "The War On Terror (tm)" be more important than keeping private data private? Not for a second. Too much has already been sacrificed (or stolen) in the name of fighting terrorism. If we're to believe that terrorists are on some fundamentalist crusade against our way of life, then giving up personal freedoms that define that way of life is exactly what we shouldn't be doing. These are the same freedoms that previous generations fought and died for and that people are supposedly fighting and dying for now in other countries. Everyone has something to hide, even if it's just credit card transaction data and personal information. Allowing any collection of these data without a warrant is wrong, period.

The idea of a government monitored camera and microphone in your living room is still absolutely unacceptable, right? Then what about your webcam and Skype account? Think about it.