Privacy like almost anything else can be used for good or bad things. Just as we’ve witnessed the Governments collection of our personal data, location and conversations, our financial privacy is now under attack.
Electronic payments have decreased our financial privacy by making it easier to log and record transactions. Paper money is one of the last remenants of privacy & control in our financial lives but thanks to public key cryptography we now have Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency as a way to preserve control of our financial transactions.
The argument always used against privacy is the saying — “If you haven’t done anything wrong, what do you have to hide?” and that logic is flawed. American was founded on the principle that making it hard for governments to control people is not a bad thing.
Reducing government’s ability to “protect” us from bad things done by ourselves should be a trade-off we’re all willing to make. Creating systems which will allow private conversations and financial transactions to take place is necessary for an open, free society.
“Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is a force, like fire: a dangerous servant and a terrible master.” - George Washington