To evaluate the nothing-to-hide argument, we should begin by looking at how its adherents understand privacy. However, it stems from certain faulty assumptions about privacy and its value. In this less extreme form, the nothing-to-hide argument is a formidable one. Thus, some might argue, the privacy interest is minimal, and the security interest in preventing terrorism is much more important. In many instances, hardly anyone will see the information, and it won’t be disclosed to the public. Retorts to the nothing-to-hide argument about exposing people’s naked bodies or their deepest secrets are relevant only if the government is likely to gather this kind of information. In a less extreme form, the nothing-to-hide argument refers not to all personal information but only to the type of data the government is likely to collect.
Higher speculations not even wrong full#
As a commenter to my blog post noted, “If you have nothing to hide, then that quite literally means you are willing to let me photograph you naked? And I get full rights to that photograph-so I can show it to your neighbors?” The Canadian privacy expert David Flaherty expresses a similar idea when he argues: “There is no sentient human being in the Western world who has little or no regard for his or her personal privacy those who would attempt such claims cannot withstand even a few minutes’ questioning about intimate aspects of their lives without capitulating to the intrusiveness of certain subject matters.”īut such responses attack the nothing-to-hide argument only in its most extreme form, which isn’t particularly strong. One can usually think of something that even the most open person would want to hide. “An altogether minor matter,” replies the prosecutor.
Higher speculations not even wrong trial#
All one has to do is look hard enough to find what it is.” Likewise, in Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s novella “Traps,” which involves a seemingly innocent man put on trial by a group of retired lawyers in a mock-trial game, the man inquires what his crime shall be. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn declared, “Everyone is guilty of something or has something to conceal. Everybody probably has something to hide from somebody.
On the surface, it seems easy to dismiss the nothing-to-hide argument.
One of the characters in Henry James’s 1888 novel, The Reverberator, muses: “If these people had done bad things they ought to be ashamed of themselves and he couldn’t pity them, and if they hadn’t done them there was no need of making such a rumpus about other people knowing.” One blogger in the United States, in reference to profiling people for national-security purposes, declares: “I don’t mind people wanting to find out things about me, I’ve got nothing to hide! Which is why I support efforts to find terrorists by monitoring our phone calls!” In a campaign slogan for the program, the government declares: “If you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear.” Variations of nothing-to-hide arguments frequently appear in blogs, letters to the editor, television news interviews, and other forums. In Britain, for example, the government has installed millions of public-surveillance cameras in cities and towns, which are watched by officials via closed-circuit television. The nothing-to-hide argument is everywhere. The data-security expert Bruce Schneier calls it the “most common retort against privacy advocates.” The legal scholar Geoffrey Stone refers to it as an “all-too-common refrain.” In its most compelling form, it is an argument that the privacy interest is generally minimal, thus making the contest with security concerns a foreordained victory for security. The nothing-to-hide argument pervades discussions about privacy. “Only if you’re doing something wrong should you worry, and then you don’t deserve to keep it private.” “I’ve got nothing to hide,” they declare. When the government gathers or analyzes personal information, many people say they’re not worried.
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