Throughout the length of its existence, this arguments has been one of the most commonly repeated talking points (or, really, justifications) of authoritarianism and surveillance that I have ever heard. It is used so commonly, but without any push back, that I feel myself repeating the same responses to it over and over again. So, let’s set the record straight and put my response down for reference.

In fact, if I am ever faced with a person who fervently believes that this argument is a legitimate argument for authoritarian surveillance, then I am just going to link them this article (hello people from the future who got here from me doing this!).

But, in any case, as hinted previously, this article will be on why I think that “You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide” is a stupid argument that I wish people would stop making.

Humans are naturally protective

This argument is the main one which revolves around ethics and the human condition. However, it is also what I would consider one of the strongest ones. Humans are naturally protective of both themselves, their belongings and, most importantly, what they do when they are alone. Don’t believe me? Well, why then do we attempt to be private while using the bathroom? Why do we not like to be watched undressing by most people?

Right off the bat, we’ve established that there are at least two things that we are protective of and which we wish to hide for no nefarious reason, so how far does it extend? Well, that is exactly the point: it extends to different points for different people, but I’ll get on to that in a few moments. But, I can imagine that most people would be a little concerned if they were watched by the government at all times while in their house to “prevent crime”. But, again, we (apparently) should have no reason to fear this and its ominously creepy nature because we have “nothing to hide”.

The point being that we are naturally protective of some things. But, by the logic of this argument, we should have no problem undressing in front of a government agent by force as long as we are not hiding something in our underwear. What? You don’t want to show private parts of yourself to the government for “The Greater Good”? Well, off to jail with you, you safety compromising criminal.

It is at this point that the insidious nature of this statement begins to become apparent. It can be applied to somewhat harmless things and to full scale harmful things too. For instance, if you are stopped by the police for driving strangely, you don’t need to be worried as long as you haven’t been drinking. But, therein lies the problem: there are no limits of this kind. By the logic of the statement, privacy has no reason to exist as long as you aren’t hiding something from the government - whereas, in reality, there are a lot of reasons a person may wish to hide things other than illegalities.

If we take the statement at its true value, we compromise the legitimate privacy and freedoms of the masses to catch a proportionally tiny amount of actual bad people. Yet, still, we are told that if we question the surveillance run by the state, we must have something to hide, warranting more surveillance!

At the end of the day, what I am trying to say is that we all have something to hide, because its human nature. We don’t need to have a reason to want to hide it - it could simply be that incursion into that feels very creepy to us. And, for me, that is the main reason why - yes - you do have something to fear, even if you have nothing to hide.

Example application: HIV epidemic

Let’s imagine that a hypothetical mutation of the HIV virus is going around causing an epidemic in the UK. For the sake of this discussion, let’s also say that it can only spread through intercourse and stopped with protection.

If we live by the rule that people should have no qualms in being survived if they are not hiding something, would there be a problem with you being watched by video surveillance as you have sex by the government to ensure that you are using protection at all times? Let’s take it further: would it be alright to require a physical witness to be present during all session of sexual intercourse?

Are alarm bells going off in your head yet?

But surely everybody thinks the same… Right…?

This is one of the less obvious (yet no less harrowing) idiotic aspects of this argument: it assumes that everybody must feel the same way.

As I outlined earlier, this argument assumes that everybody will feel the same way about their privacy, and that, if they do not, their only possible motive would be that they are doing something wrong. This is ultimately collectivist and completely ignores that people feel very differently about their own privacy and the privacy of others around them. And, this is not one of those things that you just need to get on with as it is a part of life (quit the opposite, in fact, as outlined by the previous paragraph), this is something that every single person will have a different outward facing trait marking them. In common speech, we may refer to people with an extreme wanting of privacy and a dislike for being observed “shy” (or less commonly “introverted”). Being shy is not treated as a bad thing here, so why should being shy to being watched/observed by a person whom you do not know and cannot interact with be treated any differently? If anything, it should make us more shy to the fact, based on the fact that the thing watching us is a faceless entity which cannot be reasoned with (being yet another reason why camera mass surveillance is so creepy to me).

So, effectively, this argument is only valid if we can collectively classify every person as only having qualms about surveillance if they are hiding something illegal. Not only is this out of touch with reality, it is ultimately extremely collectivist and completely ignores the individual aspect to this issue.

Ultimate trust in ultimate power

Although this argument is more of a general libertarian argument, it is still valid towards this case in particular.

Let’s say for a moment that we all take there truly is nothing to fear if we are not hiding anything and that the constant surveillance by an all powerful government is nothing for us to worry about because we are not doing something wrong. For a moment, let’s run with the idea that every single person in society has fully accepted what is going on and has no problem with it - despite what I outlined in the previous paragraphs. In this particular situation, we have a state of society where every single person is ultimately trusting of the government and the elites who run it. Effectively, there is no accountability and every person must think that what is being done is just for their own good. This is not a good situation.

A government should fear its own people, not the other way around - as the government is meant to serve the people. If the government is not serving the people in a way which they like, it should be very afraid of what they will do. However, in this situation, nobody questions the surveillance because its for “their own good”. Surely it’s not possible at all that power will be misused, wrongful accusations or other negative consequences will happen, right…? No accountability will be afforded to those in power and the system goes on, unchallenged, for the rest of time.

Doesn’t sound like a particularly good situation to me. Speaking of governmental fear, that leads me perfectly on to…

Great! A society based around fear!

The crooks of this argument boils down to the fact that us having nothing to fear is conditional - that we can have our safety taken away at any moment. Instead of meaning to work on and improve yourself, you are instead made to fear your overlords who can take away your state of safety at any moment.

So, this statement instils a vague sense of fear into the back of all our minds. Sure, you might have done nothing wrong. But what if you have? Well, they will know and you are not safe. There is no middle ground here: you either have done something wrong and need to go into full blown fear; or you have not and you are perfectly safe. This doesn’t sound like the kind of society I want to live under.

Welcome to the self-preservation society!

Yes, that was a reference to The Italian Job.

In a society where every action you make is one that can be used against you to get you into trouble and to catch you out for something, the only logical reaction would be self-preservation. Your previous freedoms would be completely gone, as the only thing in your mind when doing most things would be “could I get into trouble for this?”. The classic example for this is that a young driver stops off in the bar each Sunday night. He stops there to get some food, but never buys a drink and then proceeds to walk home. A few weeks later he applies for a driving licence. In a society where his every move is tracked and monitored, he may begin to worry what the DMV thinks about him entering a bar habitually and how it may hurt his chances for a drivers licence. It doesn’t matter what he was doing in the bar - he was in an institution where alcohol is. So, from then on, he never does what he actually wants to because of how the surveying overlords may see it. In our current society, however, the DMV couldn’t care less where you like to eat every Sunday evening, so no such thoughts enter your head.

This goes to the core of why liberty is so important: we all want it in some form or another, but once its gone in one area, we all want it back. We naturally want to be free to do certain things, and liberty-focused arguments do not try to deny this specific part of human nature. In a surveillance-based society, however, we are asked to deny our feelings and exchange them for our increased “safety and security”.

Let’s sum up

So, to sum up: this is a bad argument that has been done to death by every authoritarian throughout history. It makes little sense once examined, but has fooled too many people throughout the course of its existence. So, the next time you hear it, please don’t allow it to fool you too.

I’ll just leave you with the legendary quote from Jacob Appelbaum, which, if you still weren’t convinced, I would hope will push you over the edge:

There is the inherently selfish response of ‘I have nothing to hide’. Well it is true that I am not ill. It is true that I am not blind. But I still want to live in a world that has hospitals. I still want to live on a street that has accessibility for blind people. And it is also the case that I want to live in a world where everyone has privacy, thus dignity, confidentiality and integrity in their daily lives, without having to ask for it.

Jacob Appelbaum on privacy and dignity