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The problem with the "I've got nothing to hide" argument is it's not "you" who decides what is "right" or "wrong". The entity doing the "spying" determines what is right or wrong. "You" might think "x" is ok, however the "spying" entity may have the opposite view. And it is the "spying" entity's opinion that matters, not yours, because it always them that have the power and authority in determining what is "right" or "wrong". Moreover, definitions change on what is "right" or "wrong".
I completely agree with this.
I live in the UK and when I raise concerns about government surveillance here people often say, "I've got nothing to hide".
I learnt of a case just this week where a guy on Reddit left a slightly controversial comment and ended up being charged with hate speech, lost his job and received hate abuse online for his opinion.
It was kinda crazy because "all" he said was that didn't care about a teen who died in police custody, specifically that this teen was a, "good for nothing, spice smoking, Toxteth monkey" (Toxteth being a fairly rough inner-city area of Liverpool).
The teen he was insulting was dead and unable to take offence, but the police officer on Reddit at the time took offence and decided to prosecute the guy anyway.
I'm bringing this up because I don't think most people in the UK realise this. Insulting people online or just saying something mildly offensive will often lead to prosecution. I mean just this week an autistic child got arrested for calling a lesbian police officer a lesbian here in the UK.
We all have something to hide when what's right and wrong is this arbitrary.
Legal notes:
I do not agree with the views of the Redditor referenced in my comment. I understand how someone may be offended by what he said, but disagree specifically with it being an offence to state an offensive position online.
I also do not agree with the behaviour autistic child mentioned in my comment. I understand that being autistic is not an excuse for being offensive. Again, I am only bringing this up because I do not believe it should be an offence to offend.
The offensive language used in my comment were direct quotes used specifically to make a point.
> "I've got nothing to hide"
Are you: Jewish? Trans? Gay? A woman? Pregnant? Black? Brown? A furry? Muslim? Christian? Rich? Poor?
Need I go on? All these groups have at one time or another (including now) needed to hide. This is a forum full of techies, and I'm sure lots of people don't want to tell everyone they are a techie right away (remember when you'd get punched if you wore Google Glasses?), or talk about their income.
If you aren't willing to openly publish your bank statements and browser history, you got something to hide. Friends, family, government, foreign governments, big tech, church, whatever. You probably got something to hide.
We just got to stop equating hiding things with doing something nefarious. I don't shut the door when I poop because I'm hiding illegal activities, I just want privacy.
The real problem is that this argument relies on people actually meaning “anything”. It’s a strawman that’s so good, you get people actually trying to argue it, but the real argument isn’t about absolute publicity of information, it’s about providing access to additional information as a means to investigate wrongdoing. Very few people are practically suggesting every single fact ought to be public about a person.
Besides, doomsaying that “anything could be illegal!” isn’t backed by anything real or lasting.
The main issue is the reversal of presumption of innocence. Assuming privacy is only to hide wrongdoing...
The problem with your point is it misses the ACTUAL meaning of "I've got nothing to hide". What it actually means is "I'm more average and less likely to be targeted than you". Or "I have less to fear that you, and I'm more worried about you or think I have more to gain from non-averages people being persecuted, than I have to lose from it being used against normies like me".
I loved how the writers of that Netflix movie about a hacker put it as “I have nothing I want to show you”.
I will always counter it with "If you got nothing to hide, then why do you close the door when you're in the toilet?".
"Show me the man, and I will show you the crime."
Example: in the 1930, Dutch municipalities would record ethnicity for their citizens. The argument was that ethnicity wasn't something you'd need to hide, and it could be useful should you need to identify yourself.
When in 1940 the German occupiers took over, those records turned out to be very useful for their genocide.
Posted this three years ago, but its still relevant: My nothing to hide argument;
Nothing to hide is an incomplete sentence. Nothing to hide from who? Surely you want to hide your children from abusers and predators? Don't you want to hide your banking details from con artists and fraudsters? Your identity from identity thieves.. Your location from burglars, your car keys from car thieves or your blood type from rich mobsters with kidney problems..
we don't know who are any of these things. So we should protect ourselves from all of them, in effect we have everything to hide from someone, and no idea who someone is.
edit; let me just add the obvious, that the government and police, Google and Facebook, are made up of many someones.
"I need privacy, not because my actions are questionable, but because your judgement and intentions are."
The simplest retort I've heard to "I have nothing to hide" is "then send me a nude photo of yourself." Theres nothing wrong with nude bodies, but it is definitely private. I.e. privacy has nothing to do with hiding wrong/illegal things.
(obligatory disclaimer: a little inaccuracy saves a lot of explanation, but I think this gets the gist across)
Here's the first listed criticism of the saying on its Wikipedia page [1], by none other than Edward Snowden:
> Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.
I have been watching polite first amendment auditors on YouTube such as Honor Your Oath and Long Island Audit and Too Apree. They will engage in constitutionally protected activity such as video recording or panhandling* in public, or in Too Apree's case, just acting like a goof.
Quite eye-opening. All too often a police officer will attempt to run them off at the behest of a government bureaucrat. Overall, these videos reveal that the people who form our government tend to streamline the operation of government for their own convenience and comfort at the expense of the rights and convenience of ordinary citizens.
Even the people who have sworn an oath to uphold the rights enshrined in the Constitution all too often do not really understand what those rights are. Or don't care. Or think their job is about something else - keeping citizens in line or something.
One must always exercise one's rights or lose them. "I have nothing to hide" is hiding. As The Civil Rights Lawyer says: Freedom is scary. Deal with it.
https://www.youtube.com/@HONORYOUROATH
https://www.youtube.com/@LongIslandAudit
https://www.youtube.com/c/TOOAPREE
https://www.youtube.com/@thecivilrightslawyer
* Honor Your Oath does not actually panhandle until he is told he cannot panhandle. Then he asks the officer for money.
I got through 16 pages of the article, and he hadn't gotten to the point yet. He was summarizing previous articles he'd written. I understand that he's trying to steelman the "nothing to hide" argument, and has dispensed with the usual retorts (ably summarized in this thread so far). I'd like to know what his real response actually is. Did anybody get through the whole thing?
Ever since Row v Wade was overturned, the method I've taken in arguments is to point out the now blatantly existing cases of misuse of private data to prosecute people. Many people know about the news now about how people have been arrested and convicted because of phone data that should have been private.
I haven't had this argument very often though, so so far there aren't indications as to its effectiveness. We'll have to see how it turns out.
I've got nothing to hide.... today. The problem is tomorrow. What's legal today may not be tomorrow. We usually consider "hiding" things to be stuff only criminals do. Society usually makes the right choice on who is a criminal. But society gets it wrong sometimes. Many girls across this nation are hiding their menstrual cycles from school authorities now.
I've got everything to hide because it's none of your damn business. What gives you the right to know what I'm hiding? Nothing. And we're just hurting entire generations from developing thoughts and ideals that may benefit society, because our private space gets smaller every year.
It's so tiresome having to argue with the exact same "retorts" over and over again. It's like they do it on purpose to wear down people's willingness to resist. It's such a fundamentally thoughtless statement. In every single case, there's a 100% chance the person does have quite a lot of things that they do actively hide, they just haven't thought it through.
I’ve got plenty to hide, and I hide all my most prized things as best as I can.
I enjoy obfuscating things s much as possible just to be a tiny grain of sand of irritation in big data’s crotch.
I’m also maybe a bit oppositionally defiant but I enjoy hiding my shit. Why does anyone assume a right to know everyone’s business?
I’m wondering: is there a good list of data privacy failure consequences?
There are good lists of breaches but few describing what happened to the people afterwards. Credit card theft resulting in a loss being the most obvious one.
Such concrete (real) examples would help me to argue with people who say: all this non-sense about data privacy. What would anyone want to do with your data anyways?
Anti-"I've got nothing to hide" is a trap for people who didn't think deeply enough about it. Calling "I've got nothing to hide" a "misunderstanding" is itself a misunderstanding. This appeals to people who want to mansplain privacy to the average person, however, these people don't understand the average person.
"I've got nothing to hide" taken literally, is, of course, wrong. Everyone has something to hide. Maybe you made a right turn when there was a "no turn on red" sign. If your car was recording every action you ever took and the car company decided to turn all of that data over to the government, congratulations on your fine! However, we shouldn't take things literally. We aren't, as a society, unable to understand subtext, are we?
And the context of "I have nothing to hide" is: "I have nothing to hide from the system as it currently is and I am taking a calculated risk that the system is not going to change radically any time soon"
The layperson is bad at expressing this deeper concept that they intuit, and why should they be good at it? People are busy living their lives, not everyone wants to become an expert on their own motivations because someone on the internet decided to shove a "You do have something to hide, actually" article in their face.
"The argument that, Hey, I don't mind you listening to my phone calls, I have nothing to hide, is not an argument for this. You don't know anybody who does this for a living claiming that that's a good argument. It's a horrible argument. As Americans, we deserve that private space."
- Former Director of National Intelligence (Michael Hayden): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV2HDM86XgI&t=1h18s
PSA: please read the article before commenting.
It does a good job defining what is the "nothing to hide" argument in a way that avoids the usual strawmen. The conclusion is also more nuanced and in my opinion way more interesting than what is commonly seen in HN comments.
Unless we’re talking about financial privacy, in which case many alleged privacy supporters will curiously switch sides and defend KYC, transaction tracking and other ways of controlling other people’s wallets.
How many people actually believe the "nothing to hide" argument though? I don't doubt some do, but I'm pretty sure most of the pushback against privacy laws etc. comes from corporations who stand to benefit from collecting and selling private information about their customers.
Though I will say some of the technical challenges thrown up by some privacy laws are considerable, and trying to comply to them (including being audited etc.) doesn't often feel like the best use of resources.
One of the biggest problem I see with surveillance is not the breach of privacy, but incompetence.
See, I live in Pakistan, where we have mandatory ID cards that are required for anything, and the data of which has been leaked, and where you literally don't have a right to privacy, or any other rights, for that matter.
So I have no delusion that I have any privacy whatsoever from the government, and frankly I damn care because, after all, it's not like I've done or said anything wrong, I self-censor myself quite strictly.
What I fear are mistakes in data collection.
Sometime ago, I went to get a copy of my "family tree" (a legal document) upon the passing of my late father, and discovered that by mistake some other people's data had been linked to the same family tree as ours (some typo in the family tree ID field, the rest of the data was clearly distinct).
Imagine the consequence had I not asked them to correct this, from inheritance issues, to being picked up by the secret police because some "supposed" family member had done something and they check the database, discover I am "linked" and question me about my none-existent sibling.
The fact that I have nothing to hide would be little solace as the police perform rubber-hose decryption on me.
Worse yet, with the data breaches, my (outdated) data being in the darknet means loan sharks using it can come harass me for any debts my supposed relative took.
There are so many reasons why data security/privacy matters, none of which have to do with hiding anything.
I still fear any new additions or deletions in the database since then, but I can't keep going to the HQ and asking to verify my data every day.
I found out that asking people that got "nothing to hide so neither should you" to mount a video stream from their bedroom shuts them up right quick.
Much shorter, and only a year older: The Eternal Value of Privacy, by Bruce Schneier in 2006: <https://www.wired.com/2006/05/the-eternal-value-of-privacy/>
In this new world we need accept transparency and I'll even say total transparency. Everything going to be transparent and you have to get used to it, you'll have to behave accordingly. It becomes, how should I put it, integrated into your personality, but if you have nothing to hide... you shouldn't be afraid.
- Klasu Schwab in 2016, source: https://youtu.be/IJcey1PPiIM?t=414
"I've got nothing to hide."
Because nobody is trying to hurt you. [0]
That you know of.
Yet.
The problem with 'I have nothing to hide' is that it creates a system where everybody has to abide. Everybody needs to be transparent. Everybody's data are exposed to a third party via network effect. It is not essential that Google, or government has my data. It has my friend's data, my techears, my psychologist, my president, my boss data, my wifes data. The third party might use it correctly, but then they can sell it to somebody, to a greedy corporation, to other branches of government. I see a very big potential for abuse.
Almost all the people overlook how any piece of precise data about them (even the fact they have bought a specific product at a specific shop on a specific day) can be used to easily manipulate them or their family into anything and that any data stored will eventually leak and become available to malevolent actors no matter how benevolent and competent the original data operator was. You can be a perfectly ordinary, lawful and likable person yet get your life ruined at any moment thanks to the tons of data collected about you.
Remove privacy (from state and society) and you will live in constant fear of being shunned, ostracized, persecuted. The result is less individuality, less creativity, less exploration.
Society with privacy is different from and preferable to society without privacy. For one example, a lack of privacy enables the identity based political fragmentation that afflicts us. For another example, in developing relationships of any kind, people choose aspects of themselves to reveal to other parties. When negotiating a price, information about the counter party is an advantage.
Highly recommend this new book by Spafford and co for clearing up most of the security misunderstandings [1].
[1] Cybersecurity Myths and Misconceptions: Avoiding the Hazards and Pitfalls that Derail Us:
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/cybersecurity-myths-and...
Having access to sensitive information and potentially even business information confers a competitive edge to the spy.
This is the most important and troublesome part.
I've been looking for a similarly comprehensive summary against the encryption back door argument, can anyone point me to one?
To all those people that have nothing to hide, please provide me with your bank account numbers and mother's maiden name.
I also have nothing to hide, but I still choose to close my curtains at night.
"I've got nothing to hide."
Cool, then you're fine with me putting a webcam in your bathroom facing your toilet to watch everything you do.
Oh wait, it turns out that privacy has intrinsic value.
Perhaps this cliche should be changed to "I've got nothing confidential."
You have nothing to hide, but everything you say may be used against you.
"Nothing to hide, eh? So give me your credit card details."
Sad to see how few commenters here have actually read the article.
For a piece that goes deep into the nuances of terminology I feel it is missing substantial broader context relevant for the digital privacy debate: Digital privacy is not a peculiarly US need, nor is it confined to the citizen-state information flows.
Social organization in modern times (as seen across the planet) has created three "attractors" through which human agency primarily expresses itself: the individual/household, the (large) commercial entity and the state in its various forms. Of-course only the first type is "real", corporations and governments are legal abstractions representing the interests of various subsets of individuals. Further, the state, despite being a virtual construct, usually has ultimate power to enforce the will of whichever subset it represents.
The dramatic challenge of digital privacy is that it applies to every possible pair (e.g. person-to-person, state-to-corporate, corporate-to-corporate, state-to-state etc.) and in all possible governance circumstances (e.g. failed state, captured (oligarchic) state, warring states etc.) not just conditioning on benign scenarios.
Discussing digital privacy and rational, human-centric designs of digital society cannot ignore these interconnected elements. E.g. corporate surveillance and state surveillance are obviously deeply linked. Social technologies (of which digital information technology is part of) should aim to remove the likelihood and severity of human-inflicted disasters. 16 years after this piece and 7 years after Shoshana Zuboff's Surveillance Capitalism we are nowhere close to a more serious discussion (let alone action) about the kind of digital societies we are drifting into and what kind of risks are brewing.
The control of digital information flow concerning individuals and groups of individuals is at the very center of societal organization. The challenge is not just generational, its epochal. And it is getting worse, with every piece of code that interjects itself in these information flows.
Our era is crying out for exceptional intellectual and moral leadership that will construct the canvas on which a good digital society can thrive. Unfortunately, for now at least, not many are listening.
YOU: 'I've Got Nothing to Hide'
ME: Awesome, can you share your gmail and icloud passwords with me?
In the 1970s, Iran looked similar to many Western cultures:
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=iran+1970s&qs=MM&form=Q...
That changed literally overnight in 1979.
In the US, we had McCarthyism.
Estimating the number of victims of McCarthy is difficult. The number imprisoned is in the hundreds, and some ten or twelve thousand lost their jobs.[81] In many cases, simply being subpoenaed by HUAC or one of the other committees was sufficient cause to be fired.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism#Victims_of_McCarth...
Some weeks back, I started to watch a movie about McCarthyism and didn't make it very far in. It's not really a history we talk that much about, perhaps because it's too disturbing.
Americans like to think that sort of thing happens elsewhere, in "bad" places like Russia, not here. But it did happen here and not that long ago and it could happen again -- here or anywhere.
Milgram's famous experiments were intended to show that what happened in Nazi Germany was due to some weird character quirk or defect of Germans and couldn't happen elsewhere. His experiment proved the opposite. It proved that a high percentage of people will just do as they are told, up to and including potentially killing someone for no real reason.
Milgram suspected before the experiment that the obedience exhibited by Nazis reflected a distinct German character, and planned to use the American participants as a control group before using German participants, expected to behave closer to the Nazis. However, the unexpected results stopped him from conducting the same experiment on German participants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
In order to take an ethical stand at some risk to themselves, people generally need to both feel very clear what is right and wrong in a particular situation and have compelling reason to stick their neck out.
People who foment evil generally do all they can to instill doubt of various sorts and deny people full disclosure, which tends to be shockingly easy. Even if the information is available, it can take a great deal of time and effort for a person to adequately educate themselves about a particular thing and this can take too long to act in a decisive and timely fashion to avert an ugly slippery slope.