There are many corrupt people in the government, both elected politicians and unelected officials. Many are p#do***les, other launder money, some rig elections, while others surveil and harass innocent people.
To protect our Parliament, and Constitution, all these politicians and their families should come under public scrutiny. All their financial records, their communications, their online search histories, should be in the public domain.
In other words, we need parity of privacy between the State and its People.
This sounds hair-brained and extreme, but the public is already under intensive surveillance. I think experience needs to be felt by the officials as well so they finally begin to value the fundamental right to privacy.
Imagine living under 24/7 surveillance just because you are unlucky enough to be some politician’s family member or a close friend.
It might be controversial, but: privacy should exist for everyone. No matter who you are, journalist, politician, activist or just a normal guy — anyone’s privacy should be valued the same way. We need to push privacy in the masses, not vice versa.
I consider this post as more of a thought experiment. If this sounds extreme to you, then the mass surveillance of society is even more extreme.
The fact governments almost always exempt themselves should be all that’s needed to prove the measures violate a democratic societies rule of law and civil liberties, and that their promotion should be considered treason — an attack on the civil liberties of the entire population is an attack on democracy itself.
I forget what privacy podcast I was listening to but they said that privacy is important because you might not be under scrutiny now but could be.
After the Boston marathon bombing reddit was scouring footage and believed a particular person was responsible (“we did it reddit!”). They were wrong. People found his address, work etc and he was stalked and harrassed for days though he did nothing wrong.
You can bet he would have liked to disappear for a while, and a little extra everyday privacy in advance would have made that a lot easier.