One of the more challenging areas of restraint for me is when someone rationalizes unbridled access to someone else’s information by arguing, “Well, if you don’t have anything to hide, you shouldn’t have any objection.”
What could it hurt?
Naïvely, and, more importantly — dangerously — this position fails to recognize the difference between data and intelligence. The former is raw, unconsidered information. The latter adds interpretation to that record of the former.
So, to you and me, “667 Main Street, Apartment 16,” is just an address. But coded into a database that runs character strings without spaces, apartment information preceding building, the number “16667” appears in a string. And it’s only a matter of time before some intelligence person sees the three of those sixes together in an apartment-first, street-second layout, and draws “the only possible conclusion,” ie, “mark of the devil!”
Stop and think about some of the best thriller-genre story lines. “Mistaken identity” is really nothing more than otherwise innocent data being taken the wrong way. Happens all the time.
And, as a matter of fact, so much so, I’m guessing, that folks who were here long before me and undoubtedly a lot smarter than I am, felt it important enough to spell out as a prohibition.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
As arguments go, Fourth Amendment trumps rationalization for riffling through my underwear drawer. At least as far as I’m concerned.
How ’bout you?