Professor Daniel Solove, from George Washington University Law School, has written a wonderful paper on privacy and the “Nothing to Hide” argument (click here to read). It is important for people to understand that privacy is about the balance of power, and NOT about hiding unlawful or bad behavior. When a person quips: “I don’t mind the government surrveilling me… I have nothing to hide”, they are basing the value of privacy on this “bad behavior” fallacy. If privacy were based on this notion, then why don’t we share our credit card statement, paystubs, and medical records with our neighbors? Why do we put curtains on our windows and doors on our bedrooms? To take it to the extreme, why to we even wear clothes? The fact that we keep these things private doesn’t mean there is anything unlawful or wrong going on. It simply means we want to maintain a certain level of control on our lives, and revealing any one of these things could affect that power balance between us and others (whether businesses or people).
This balance of power is important to understand when it comes to government surveillance. Mass surveillance is usually framed by supporters as enhancing security, which in many cases it’s true. However, we must strike a balance between privacy and “surveillance based” security, as the two are diametrically opposed (note that there are many other ways to increase security without relying on surveillance). When striking this balance, we all too often underestimate the value of privacy because we don’t frame it in terms of power and self-determination. Framing privacy this way is important, as evidenced by the fact that the United States Constitution is designed to limit the powers of government, not grant them. It defines a set of “inaliable rights” to help maintain the power balance. The 1st Amendment allows us to express our opinions, the 2nd Amendment allows us to defend ourselves from a tyrannical government, and 4th Amendment protects us from unreasonable searches (surrveilance) and seizures. It also defines a system of checks-and-balances between the 3 branches to help ensure no one branch gains too much power. When we as a nation forget this, we open ourselves up to losing more and more control over the direction of our lives.
Here’s the abstract from the paper:
In this short essay, written for a symposium in the San Diego Law Review, Professor Daniel Solove examines the nothing to hide argument. When asked about government surveillance and data mining, many people respond by declaring: I’ve got nothing to hide. According to the nothing to hide argument, there is no threat to privacy unless the government uncovers unlawful activity, in which case a person has no legitimate justification to claim that it remain private. The nothing to hide argument and its variants are quite prevalent, and thus are worth addressing. In this essay, Solove critiques the nothing to hide argument and exposes its faulty underpinnings.
Daniel Solove’s blog “Concurring Opinions” can be found here.
