I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy (2014)
Doesn’t look like many are reading the actual article. It sets up the “nothing to hide” argument as the following, which is quite a bit more difficult to rebut:<p>“ Therefore, in a more compelling form than is often expressed in popular discourse, the nothing to hide argument proceeds as follows: The NSA surveillance, data mining, or other government information- gathering programs will result in the disclosure of particular pieces of information to a few government officials, or perhaps only to government computers. This very limited disclosure of the particular information involved is not likely to be threatening to the privacy of law-abiding citizens. Only those who are engaged in illegal activities have a reason to hide this information. Although there may be some cases in which the information might be sensitive or embarrassing to law-abiding citizens, the limited disclosure lessens the threat to privacy. Moreover, the security interest in detecting, investigating, and preventing terrorist attacks is very high and outweighs whatever minimal or moderate privacy interests law-abiding citizens may have in these particular pieces of information.<p>Cast in this manner, the nothing to hide argument is a formidable one.”