With all the NSA revelations that are coming out, and that likely will continue to come out, one of the most important debates is surrounding what privacy we are due. The easiest, and laziest, argument is that privacy only matters to those with things to hide. That’s not only false, but incredibly short-sighted — It is a dismissing argument that people should be ashamed to make.

It’s hard to define exactly why privacy, and strong privacy at that, is of paramount importance.

[Marko Polojärvi has the best article](https://markopolojarvi.com/privacy.html) on the importance of privacy that I have seen thus far.

You should read the entire article, but just in case you don’t, be sure to take note of these quotes from his post.

If you run a website:

> It’s important to understand that Google’s dragnet tracking is not limited to your searches on Google.com. Google offers various “free” services to webmasters like Google Analytics. The webmaster installs a piece of code on the website and that code sends your unique tracking data to Google every time you visit that website.
[…]
> As a webmaster by using these services you’re literally selling out your visitors (and for zero profit) and contributing to the problem.

And the how this can effect everything when lawmakers are not kept in check:

> The British police used data obtained from “internet communications” to arrest around 50 potential royal wedding protestors based on predictions that they might cause annoyance. As I’m writing this there’s also new legislation being passed in the UK that makes any behaviour perceived as potentially ’cause nuisance or annoyance’ a criminal offence.

Well worth your time today to read up.