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Comment by jsingleton | Hacker News Reader

Well put.

The Open Rights Group regularly do briefings on things like this and one of the "Responses you might get and how to counter them" arguments is:

"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear

That isn’t true. Surveillance has been used against journalists, whistleblowers and human rights activists. Most of us want to keep parts of our lives private." [0]

I've had people use the naïve "nothing to fear" argument before. Tell them that even if they wrongly believe that they don't require privacy, people working in their interest do.

[0] https://www.openrightsgroup.org/assets/files/campaign_resour...

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And even if I have nothing to hide why can't I fear for potential whistle blowers, journalists, or activists?

It's a shame that we love to boil incredibly complex issues down into simple platitudes. You find it on facebook, on the news, on twitter (although short and sweet does work well there), and every where else you look and people you talk to.

It's a shallow way to talk about things.

"That's the ten-word answer my staff's been looking for for two weeks. There it is. Ten-word answers can kill you in political campaigns. They're the tip of the sword.

Here's my question: What are the next ten words of your answer? Your taxes are too high? So are mine. Give me the next ten words. How are we going to do it? Give me ten after that, I'll drop out of the race right now. Every once in a while... every once in a while, there's a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong, but those days almost always include body counts. Other than that, there aren't many unnuanced moments in leading a country that's way too big for ten words."

--President Josiah "Jed" Bartlet, The West Wing Season 4, Episode 5 (2002)

I agree, except I don't think it's "incredibly complex". The bigger issue is in reducing things to a soundbite, we almost always end up with something that just speaks to the individual. And as you pointed out, I may have nothing to 'hide' myself, but want to ensure the privacy of others as a basic freedom.

As a general rule though, soundbites often do simplify things that are incredibly complex - the economy is broken, so clearly the solution to literally everything is to Reduce Taxes/Tax The Rich More/Your Nonsense Here.

Those generally have a grain of truth, but there is no simple one-line solution here, it's invariably quite complex. The field of economics is an entire field rather than a one-paragraph summary, after all.

If they have nothing to hide, ask them for nudes.

"If you have nothing to hide, exert this effort."

No thanks. Come take my clothes off, bring a camera. I'll charge my normal hourly rate and we'll both be upset about time wasted.

Also point out that they break a couple of laws every day, just like the rest of us do here in America. The only thing that saves them, however temporarily, is that those laws don't "count."

I disagree, you can have nothing to write but still desire to read "free thoughts" of those who do have things to write. Not sure there's a parallel for privacy, if you assume self-interest.

So, even if you have nothing to hide, you still have things to fear.

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