Why "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear" argument is flawed

Today’s encryption may be easy to break in years to come but that doesn’t mean tomorrow’s encryption won’t be stronger. This idea of “we’ll if you haven’t done anything wrong, you shouldn’t have anything to hide” is flawed for so many reasons.

It assumes we shouldn’t be entitled to a degree of secrecy based on our personal preferences. It also assumes whoever is monitoring our communications has a sense of right and wrong that aligns with ours and is consistent with whichever law governs that surveillance (in itself a challenging baseline).

We shouldn’t need to surrender our privacy, particularly where I suspect the real targets of this surveillance (assuming the authorities are being totally open with us on that one) are probably using pretty secure channels to communicate and develop their nefarious plans.


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  1. […] scrutiny if you have nothing to hide. This argument is flawed for various reasons. One reason is the assumption proponents of this view make about your entitlement to privacy. Another reason why this argument is flawed has to do with trust. More directly, the extent to […]

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