“If you aren’t doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?”
Some clever answers:
“If I’m not doing anything wrong,
then you have no cause to watch me.”“Because the government gets to define what’s wrong,
and they keep changing the definition.”“Because you might do something wrong with my information.”
At the Crypto-Gram Newsletter, Bruce Schneier continues, “My problem with quips like these — as right as they are — is that they accept the premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong. It’s not.
Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect.
Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we’re doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance.
…we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide.”
An article on wholesale surveillance measures originally appeared on Wired.com.