The Importance of Glenn Greenwald's Why Privacy Matters Speech

Name
Professor
Course
14 December 2018
Glenn Greenwald: Why Privacy Matters
1.
Glenn Greenwald is an American lawyer, journalist, and author. He previously worked for the Guardian US and was among the first journalists to publish a large volume of NSA spying documents entrusted to him by Edward Snowden. It was the work of Glenn Greenwald and others that made the general public aware of the large-scale surveillance by NSA and its partner agencies across the globe and their intrusion on just everyone’s privacy and freedom. Despite facing personal repercussions for his professional work, Glenn continues his public speeches on about the mass surveillance (Keller, 1).
In the speech Why Privacy Matters, Greenwald presents an elegant and persuasive argument on the importance of privacy to human freedom and the destructive nature of the notion ‘if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.’ The following are the main points in Glenn’s argument. He starts by noting that the horror people experience when they find out that someone is watching them as they engage in private activity encourages the sense of “This is something I’m willing to do only if no one else is watching” (Glenn, 00:49). He further explains the idea by illustrating the dangers of mass surveillance on the freedom of expression, specifically on the comments by Google CEO, “If you're doing something that you don't want other people to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place” (Glenn, 03:08). He argues that those who claim to have nothing to hide, their actions tend to differ. The feeling of being watched restricts people from behaving to their true nature and refers to George Orwell and French philosopher Michel to expound on this point (Michael, Andrews & Williams, 135). He says that the psychological aspect of being watched is of benefit to oppresses, a fact exploited even before the availability of mass surveillance. He provides several examples to show that surveillance promotes tyranny. He argued that the rulers don’t share the common understanding of bad things. He concluded by emphasizing on his argument: mass surveillance reduces people’s freedom.
Why Privacy Matters is a speech Greenwald gave on Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) talks at the 2014 TEDGlobal in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. TED talks are short talks aimed at spreading ideas that are worthwhile (TED, 2018). The typical setting is a conference where a presenter talks about a particular issue or concept in a short but informative way. There is a time limit usually around 15 minutes with a few extra minutes for questions and observations by the moderator. The entire clip is 20 minutes long, 15 minutes on Greenwald’s speech and 5 minutes engaging in an interactive session with the moderator.
2.
Greenwald is an eloquent and effective speaker and presents his argument in a way that his audience agrees with the points he makes. He starts his speech by giving an example of how people feel when their privacy is invaded, something that everyone experiences or relates, which invites the audience to look at privacy from his perspective. Greenwald mentioned on researching on the topic for the p...