Judge Richard Posner is probably one of the most well-known and quoted appellate judges around. He’s an excellent writer as well, and I enjoy many of his books and his rulings, though when he gets things wrong, he seems to get them so very, very wrong. When he’s on, he’s great. For example, his recent attack on copyright trolling and defending the public domain was great. He’s also been good on patents. But… on surveillance he seems all too eager to side with the government.

Given that, there was little surprise that at a recent conference on cybercrime, Posner unloaded with some of his more ridiculous beliefs, essentially saying that the NSA should be able to spy on whoever they want because “national security” is more important than privacy (or the 4th Amendment, apparently):

“I think privacy is actually overvalued,” Judge Richard Posner, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, said during a conference about privacy and cybercrime in Washington, D.C., Thursday.

“Much of what passes for the name of privacy is really just trying to conceal the disreputable parts of your conduct,” Posner added. “Privacy is mainly about trying to improve your social and business opportunities by concealing the sorts of bad activities that would cause other people not to want to deal with you.”

Ah, the old “if you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to hide” trope. If that’s true, then it does make you wonder what Posner himself is hiding. As Dave Maass pointed out, Judge Posner has redacted the name of his trust on his financial disclosure form.

Read the Full Article: Source – Tech Dirt
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141208/14063329364/judge-posner-says-nsa-should-be-able-to-get-everything-that-privacy-is-overrated.shtml

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