“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.” -Edward Snowden

If I was to answer that type of argument, I would consider those:

• why do you close the door of the bathroom when you use it?
• Can I watch you fuck?
• Show me your last income declaration
• Give me your credit card
• Why do you wear clothing?
• Why do you lock the door of the house?

but I tend to ignore people using the “I have nothing to hide” argument

I posted the following somewhere else recently:

“nothing to hide”

Secrecy and privacy are two different things.

Secrecy is hiding something you don’t want anyone to know because it’s “Bad/illegal”.

Privacy is acknowledging that it’s none of ANYONE’S business where you put gas in your car, what route you drive home, what brand of underwear you buy, what kind of music you listen to, your eating habits, etc…

The more you are ok with data being collected, the more data they will try to collect until finally your life isn’t yours anymore.

You don’t close the bathroom door because you’re doing something illegal, you close the bathroom door because it’s none of anyone’s business and you aren’t interested in being watched.

Our personal data is valuable and holds power over us. Unfortunately it’s only been recent decades that this concept REALLY started to sink in and unfortunately big corporations figured it out a little quicker than we did

2 big things for me.

First is that everyone, and I mean absolutely everyone has something they want to hide. People assume “I’m not a violent person or a criminal” except yes you are, and you’ve done something. A great example is everyone in the US speeds, absolutely everyone. Does that mean you want every office to know every instance of you speeding if you get pulled over? So, yes everyone has something they’d rather not say.

Second is more of an example of you should be allowed to go places without everyone knowing. The example was about 5 years ago police used location data to find a person who broke into someone’s home. Problem is that the location data they used returned one person who happened to be on that street around the same time. They were riding their bike down the street. To the police they had the person there, they had proof, it was good enough. Except it wasn’t, and he obviously wasn’t the person they were looking for. Location data put him there though, and sold him out. So maybe not the best thing for whoever to know exactly where you are at any given time.

As for encryption, ask him for his porn history. If he gets upset, just say “why it’s not illegal”

but, I agree with the other person. If you’re dad is like mine and countless others, you’re not fighting against him but propaganda. If that’s the case, you aren’t going to win this. The only winning is turning off the source.

I’m reminded of a story I heard about a woman in South America (I don’t remember the country.) Her best friend attended a protest one year. She makes a post on Facebook about supporting her best friend. A few years pass, and the government started becoming more and more authoritarian. Finally, she gets a visit from the police, asking about her ties to her best friend, and is threatened with arrest unless she can prove she’s not tied to the protest as well.

I’m probably getting some details wrong, but it’s a thought that stuck with me. She didn’t have anything to hide at the time. But things change, and you can’t always predict what you’ll have wish you had kept private before.

“Why do you shit with the door closed? What are you doing there, drugs?”

While targeted advertisements may be nice because it’s only showing you things that they think that you’ll want/need/like, the other side of surveillance based advertising is surveillance pricing.

Surveillance pricing analyzes massive troves of your personal information to predict the price you would be willing to pay for an item—and charge you accordingly. Retailers can charge a higher price when it thinks you can afford to spend more—on payday, for example. Or when you need something the most, such as in an emergency.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/08/fight-surveillance-pricing-we-need-privacy-first

“Do you shit with the door open?”

“Why? Are you hiding something?”

“To make sure you’re not hiding anything, I need you to shit with the door open from now on.”

Eventually, they’ll justify their need for privacy. When they do, agree with them.

It is sadly something that some people will never understand. You could question why he does the things he does (closing curtains, using envelopes for letters instead of just using a postcard, having a password at all), but that would likely just make him feel attacked.

Something you don’t need to hide today may be something you need to hide tomorrow. And there’s no going back.

“If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.”

Cardinal Richelieu

I’m not worried about what I’m doing, I’m worried about the intentions of those looking

I don’t have anything to hide does not imply that anyone needs to know. Not you, not a neighbor, not the internet, and absolutely not the government.

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Any data that anybody collects of you today, they will keep. You might not be doing anything illegal today, but you have no way of knowing what will be declared illegal tomorrow, or by the next government, or the one after that, or if those will honor the principle of not punishing you for past breaches of new laws retroactively.

People in 1930 Germany did not know it would soon be illegal to have a relationship with a jew, or to talk negatively about Hitler. People in the 2024 USA didn’t think they would soon be in danger for filming ICE raids, or tracking their movements in chat groups.

Another argument is that your data that advertisers or the government collect doesn’t necessarily stay with them. Car manufacturers were shown ( article in German ) to have location tracking data of their customers’ vehicles on virtually unprotected servers facing the internet. Researchers were able to deduct from this data alone who worked for e.g. secret services, who likely cheated on their wife, where their kids went to school and so on. What do you think a malicious actor could do with information clearly showing at which times in a week your house is likely to be empty?

Information about you and your family and social contacts and chats can also be used to better scam you by impersonating somebody you know. “Hey dad, it’s X, got a new number. Can you transfer me some money till next week maybe?” Many people fall for that.

There are also other ways in which data can be used against you without anything strictly illegal happening. Do you really want your car insurance to have data about your driving habits?

Do you want your health insurance to know how often you order pizza? Both might get the idea to increase your payments for that in the future.

Would you want possible future employers to know you have a chronic disease that might mean you’ll call in sick more often than others?

Last but not least, have you never said or done anything really embarrassing that you’d just prefer nobody to know?