IS PRIVACY A MYTH?

In the global hub of today’s scenario, can someone actually believe in the concept of privacy which happens to be our fundamental right? Well, to answer a long question short, yes! Privacy is a real thing. The question is less about if it’s real or not and more about who has access to it. If your privacy can be accessed by anyone, whether they represent the government or not. This becomes important because if this is the case, then should we even call it privacy at all? I mean, if it could be accessed by anyone, it no longer is private. If anybody can know with whom you’re talking, when you’re talking, and about what you’re talking then, doesn’t it become a piece of public information to some extent? And our today’s government is adamant about enacting laws that seek to achieve this very thing. No wonder they ask you to write an essay on such topics in government examinations. Seems like they want to know how many people are actually aware of their intentions. Citing national security as the reason to do anything becomes their life raft to escape any accountability. I can’t help but draw comparisons between the case of former US computer intelligence consultant Edward Snowden and our current scenario.

Back in 2013, Edward Snowden leaked some classified information from NIA (National Intelligence Agency) that basically revealed how the US government was constantly spying on its population and gathering data. He couldn’t stand this colossal invasion of privacy and blew the whistle on the unlawful practices of the agency. What happened next? He got charged for violation of multiple laws, including espionage, and had to leave the country to avoid imprisonment and live the rest of his days in hiding. He is alive and well and virtually appears in podcasts but nobody knows where he lives. As for the ones who were actually committing an invasion of privacy, they all retained their jobs till retirement and lived happily ever after even after the court declared the entire programme illegal and possibly unconstitutional. How did they escape accountability you ask? They told everyone that what they did was for national security. They used the holy terminology of acquittal by citing “national security” as the reason to do something that was unconstitutional. And by the way, they prevented zero national-level threats from the data they gathered by invading people’s privacy for decades. Do you see a resemblance?

Nowadays, right here in our own country, if you fight for your right then there is a greater chance of you being labeled as “anti-national” than you actually achieving that right. I mean, there is a clear distinction between what a government is and what is a nation. The government is just a temporarily chosen representative of a nation. The latter is the superset of the former. Can a nation’s history, values and personality be so malleable that it can be changed drastically by its representatives who are chosen for a couple of years? How can something which was normal some years ago be anti-national today? Give that a thought.

Coming back to privacy, how private are your most private conversations when a highly sensitive microphone of a conglomerate is placed right next to you? How comfortable are you with the fact that just by talking about buying a plushie for your dog gets you targeted by the advertisements of the companies that sell that plushie? Be it Amazon Alexa, Google Home, or your dearest electronic buddy, your smartphone, will you be able to freely speak with your partner if you knew that everything that you’re saying is being listened to? And who knows who has access to your conversations? Do you think this is bad? Riddle me this, can something bad be regarded as good if something worse creeps up from the corner? I am once again taking the conversation towards the role of the government. Our newly suggested IT bills seek to revoke the “End to End Encryption” of your WhatsApp messages which basically guarantees that only the sender and the receiver of that message can actually read it. They want the messages of almost 400 million users to be easily accessible by revoking their encryption and invading their fundamental right just to stop the spreading of misinformation. Talk about irony when their officials constantly spread misinformation on mainstream media. We all remember the infamous “Go Corona Go!” campaign, don’t we?

If the bill is passed in both the houses and actually becomes the law, then how can a public tweet be differentiated from your private message? So, what do we do? Well, if history has taught us anything, it’s that no right is given to you unless you struggle and fight for it. And this fight needs to be a collective one.

In conclusion, privacy is not a myth. It is a very real thing. But, it’s the misuse of our global hub of technology, which results in a dent in the overall concept, coupled with badly formulated laws and unaccountable personnel which causes a crack on that dent. Such a crack leads to leakage of data, and once it leaks, it is no longer private.

[Not fond of reading? Find the audio podcast of this article. Search for SpeakingMind on Amazon Music.]

Edward Snowden's Interview with Joe Rogan

Support the work by donating.