Whenever a bill purporting to strengthen privacy protections enters the political field I receive numerous requests to support it. I always politely decline, which results in the advocate saying some variation of “I know you’re an anarchist but it doesn’t take any time to call your representatives.” It’s a false argument because it does take time to call the person who supposedly represents me (even though I never appointed him to represent me) in Congress. And since privacy laws are ineffective at protecting privacy it takes time that will gain me absolutely nothing, which is not a wise investment in my opinion.
Privacy laws are just like any other State decree. Those who are willing to tolerate the laws will follow them and those who find them burdensome will ignore them:
Telco giant Vodafone illegally accessed a journalist’s mobile phone records to discover the source of stories about the company, hid systemic privacy breaches from authorities and covered up fraud in its Brisbane office, according to internal documents.
An investigation into these allegations is currently under way. The outcome is irrelevant since the damage has already been done and it’s unlikely Vodafone will be made to pay compensation to the involved parties (usually whatever government agency oversees the regulation gets the winnings from any trail with maybe a pittance given to those actually harmed).
Protecting privacy can only be done by directly protecting it. Once privacy has been violated it’s too late to defend it. That’s why I push cryptography so heavily. Privacy laws are irrelevant if you have taken effective measure to protect your privacy. If you’ve failed to protect your privacy the laws are still irrelevant because the damage has already been done.
Begging the State to issue decrees is a waste of your time that can be better spent learning how to actually address the issue you’re petitioning the State about.