Scholars till this day are trying to understand the definition of privacy. They deem this word privacy to be “Vague” and “Ambiguous”. We can all agree that after 9/11, the United States has never been the same before. So I’ve heard, since I was only 2 years old at the time. The government was so paranoid from this horrific attack, they took measures to never let something like this happen again. The government tapped phones and got access to citizens’ financial transactions. Some people were deeply offended by these actions whereas others did not mind. Their reasoning was the main topic of this post. “I’ve got nothing to hide”, so why should we worry that the government is all up in our business. Personally, I do not agree with such measures. Yes, I do not have anything to hide but I believe that it is my right to enclose my text messages, phone calls, and my bank statements. Especially, being someone who derives her daily life around dark humor. I do not need the entirety of the US government knowing about certain depressive episodes. Although, who knows if my family and I haven’t been phone tapped already. We arrived from Bangladesh in 2000, so you see my point. Also, I found it quite comical that the author Daniel J. Solove mentions that some jurists, politicians and scholars still cannot properly define the word privacy. It’s not like their whole profession is based on confidentiality. Right?
Not enough dead bodies?
Daniel J. Solove embarks on a new finding that “Bartow claims that the taxonomy does not have “enough dead bodies” and that privacy’s “lack of blood and death, or at least of broken bones and buckets of money, distances privacy harms from other categories of tort law.”. To me, reading those sentences made me feel a little sick. Is Bartow saying that since the research of taxonomy is not enough, and that there aren’t enough dead bodies, we cannot understand what it means to be private? Or violate privacy? I found Anne Bartow’s response to Solove so I can further understand what she was trying to say in that sentence. She basically discusses privacy violations and it ultimately leads to negatively impacting everyone’s lives. So, before that happens we should conclude the correct definition of privacy. I do agree with her in that sense, because there are so many questions about what privacy really means. Lastly, Solove brings up that some people say privacy is a form of intimacy and that really got me confused. I just don’t understand how being private has to do anything with being intimate. Ultimately, “The nothing to hide argument” will always be around. There will always be people saying that “People who hide information are doing bad things” which definitely is not the case. I absolutely do not agree with the government tapping our phones and bank statements without a warrant. What is the harm with asking for permission?
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