> I'm struggling to find compelling and valid reasons why we can't pursue a general solution that involves us giving all this "private" data to a government entity for legitimate investigations, fraud prevention and crime-solving whilst keeping that data free from abuse.
Because that's not logically possible. It would be nice if it were, but just think about it: if you give data to the government, humans can look at it. Can we ensure that the humans who look at it are good humans? No. Is there some mathematical way of signing and encrypting such that only good humans can look at it? No.
Okay, so it's logically impossible to keep bad people out mathematically, but maybe it's a practical problem and it doesn't matter in practice? Except no, there are tons of evil governments (CCP being the most obvious, but pick your poison), and even good governments are subject to the problem that people can bribed and secrets can be stolen if there is sufficient motivation. It's just not compatible with human nature to say "collect all this information on people, but only use it For Good Purposes."
But, the message you are replying to points out governments already have piles of information about you -- your taxes for example. They can easily add to this (in appropriate legal situations), by reaching out to banks in your country for example.
While I understand the problem of evil governments, I broadly trust mine. I want them to have the power to investigate me, and my fellow citizens, for crimes. I don't want to love in a lawless country.
The level of information we are talking about is not comparable.
First of all, tax information in the United States was in fact abused by Richard Nixon, so it's not just a hypothetical possibility. It's a thing that already happened and requires safeguarding to prevent recurring. If there were a way of collecting taxes without the possibility of abuse, we would use it, but there's not, so we do what we can to balance things. FWIW, I think actually a lot of government records should be stored on paper and not in computers because hackers can steal 300m records overnight, but even very enterprising thieves can only steal one or two truckloads of physical records per hour.
Second of all, this information is just on another level. My tax information is basically not interesting to anyone except that it has my SSN on it, and SSNs are only interesting because the US has bad laws around "identity theft" and we don't properly punish corporations for giving out loans based on nothing but an unverified SSN. Could someone embarrass me by releasing my tax info? I guess if they really dug into my charitable deductions and found an embarrassing cause (a la Brendan Eich?) or that I was giving too little? For me, an average American, there is little or no reason to fear having my taxes used against me.
Email is just not like that. There are certainly emails I have send and received which I hope no one else will see. It's just not comparable at all. It's the difference between having $100 in your wallet (might be stolen but probably not) and $6m in your wallet (will absolutely be stolen if people know about it).
Should the government be able to investigate me? Of course! But investigations have happened for centuries before emails existed. Investigation does not require pre-surveillance of emails or covert surveillance. The simplest thing the government can do is arrest me on suspicion of X charges and then go through all my computers. That is 100% the government should be able to do! If they catch me destroying evidence, I should be charged with destruction of evidence. But that is different from empowering the government to secretly look at email. The part where the government collects my email should be public action that I am well aware, not a secret action done passively by breaking encryption.
I'm not clear what you are arguing for? Do you not want a functioning, effective police force now, in case they become evil in the future (or already are evil, depending on your point of view)?
If a government turns full evil, they don't need evidence against you, they can just lock you up without charge.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to take a non-absolute position here. You can want a somewhat functioning, somewhat effective police force, but not one that is more functioning or effective than the one we have in reality; or, in fact, you can want one that is less functioning and effective than the one we have now, without being completely dysfunctional and ineffective.
(One could imagine a police force that is effective enough to stop murderers, but not effective enough to stop dissidents. Such a police force would be more useful for a society that wants no murder than for one that wants no dissent.)
Some people want to be more private than current (for example, this discussion of email keys). As more things move online, it is worth thinking where the balance should be (we probably agree on that), I think the balance should be less privacy (I'm sure you don't agree with that, a full discussion on that won't fit well in a ycombinator thread).
You’re right on you final points. My two rebuttals for advocating for less privacy online is that being online naturally makes you less private, not more.
Previously if someone, government or otherwise, wanted to learn about you, they would need to physically follow you, tap your phones, intercept your post etc. Warrants for searches were built around this.
Online, you can dig into the private life of someone on the other side of the plant who you’ve never met. With the application of computers you can dig into the lives of hundreds of people you’ve never met. All without leaving the comfort of your desk.
The opportunity for fishing expedition is unprecedented at the moment, and it always easy to justify a fishing expedition if you pick a horrific enough crime (child pornography seems to be the favourite right now).
Finally privacy is the strongest bulwark we have against government overreach. That doesn’t mean some top down conspiracy of a totalitarian-elect government. It can be normal everyday government administrators who decide to step outside their bounds for personal reasons, or belief of moral superiority.
Simply put, there’s no better deterrent for bad behaviour than hard work. Privacy makes bad actors work hard for their lunch. It makes the good actors work hard as well, but the solution to that isn’t less privacy, it’s more funding and resources for good actors.
Because that's not logically possible. It would be nice if it were, but just think about it: if you give data to the government, humans can look at it. Can we ensure that the humans who look at it are good humans? No. Is there some mathematical way of signing and encrypting such that only good humans can look at it? No.
Okay, so it's logically impossible to keep bad people out mathematically, but maybe it's a practical problem and it doesn't matter in practice? Except no, there are tons of evil governments (CCP being the most obvious, but pick your poison), and even good governments are subject to the problem that people can bribed and secrets can be stolen if there is sufficient motivation. It's just not compatible with human nature to say "collect all this information on people, but only use it For Good Purposes."