Sometimes asking if their private conversations (about spouse or kids) conversation would be different with an active observer in the room. Or if they are OK with a stranger at each window watching you. But some see that as paranoia, so it is fruitless.

The real issue is things like: how ICE is requesting records without subpoenas from telecom industries and they comply. Which lets them target protestors, and arrest them an trumped up charges. That’s the slide into 1984 distopia. But it still comes off as paranoid.

“I have nothing to share” It’s healthy to want privacy and to say I don’t want to share.

“post hole”

I saw someone on YouTube respond with “give me your phone and let me go into the other room for an hour”

No hidden thoughts that might trigger shame? Then you are not human or you’ve been trepanned.

“So why do you wear clothes or don’t share your credit card details online?”

“Let me join you next time you need to poop then”

“That’s sad”

you’re the one talking about it to people and getting mad

what do you say?

Everyone has something to hide. That’s why I’m not posting my online banking password on Facebook or letting anyone install cameras in my toilet.

I do have something to hide. I wear clothes, because I don’t want everybody to see my naked body. I keep my debit card hidden in my wallet, my keys to my car and house hidden in my pockets, my passwords are hidden in my password manager, my phone’s unlock code is a secret, my SSN is hidden on a card in a secure place in my house, which I also lock up securely. I close the stall door when I use the bathroom, I don’t walk around with my medical records taped to my back, I don’t tell people all the invasive dirty or violent thoughts that randomly pop into my head, and I don’t keep my car’s title in the front seat, nor my bank account and routing numbers written on my arm.

And I would wager most other people are the same. All of those are completely legitimate things people have to hide, good reasons to keep them secret and locked away. It has nothing to do with being a criminal, or a sick pervert, or a domestic terrorist, or any of the other bullshit fake “explanations” for why people would value their privacy.

And all that doesn’t even touch issues like systemic corporate or state oppression, data exploitation, or labor repression. It doesn’t touch things like fascist governments coming to power and deciding that certain opinions or expressions of speech are “subversive” and must be banned. How easily “nothing to hide” can become “domestic terrorism” when certain groups come into power.

They should go to bathroom with doors open from now. Comfort of privacy is meaningless if they got nothing to hide, right?

A few points:

• “I have nothing to hide,” means you’ve accepted the premise that the burden of innocence is on you. That you are guilty until proven innocent. There are a couple millenia of jurisprudence, saying ‘innocent until proven guilty’ should be the default. The US 5th, 6th, and 14th amendments get close, but they don’t just come out and say it.

• “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.” This has been attributed to a few people from Cardinal Richelieu to Voltaire. But the crux is, anyone can make someone appear guilty. Doesn’t matter if you’re innocent. The burden of proof has to be on the accuser, otherwise it’s down to chaos, and tyrrany of the powerful and the mob.

• Personal privacy by default is one of those fundamental rights that gives us control of a lot of things around us. From freely walking down the street, to our shopping habits, license-plate-readers, location-tracking, who we associate with, and our healthcare.

• Imagine if the rules were changed so any time anyone wanted to use our data, including transactions, web and mobile interactions, credit-card, banking, voting, healthcare, whatever… they had to get explicit, single-use permission. How much weight would be lifted from everyone’s shoulder. It means you, the individual are in charge.

• There’s academic data on the psychological effects of surveillance. It has actual effect on one’s behavior and mental health: https://academic.oup.com/nc/article/2024/1/niae039/7920510

• At this point, there are too many privacy leaks. The only reasonable solution is to flip it all on its head. EVERYTHING is private, unless there is a legitimate reason to pierce that veil, and the burden is on those wanting the data.

It’ll have financial impacts on many business models. Yes, and? Do better.

Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different from saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say. - Edward Snowden

Then why do you close the door when you take a shit?