Nothing to Hide, Nothing to Fear

This little line is used so often when people are ok with giving up our freedoms. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. This little sentence sickens me, but when anyone talks of ID cards, biometrics, putting everyone on a DNA database, tracking all cars or good old chipping of people, this is the excuse used if you're against it.

I'm against all of these things and yet anytime i say that someone will always ask what i have to hide. Well i have nothing ot hide, i'm not a criminal as far as i'm aware, i have no secret moey coming in and i've never left my DNA at a crime scene (because i havn't commited any crimes). However i understand what happens when a government can know everything you're up to, even legal stuff. It can eventually be abused to deal with political dissidents and other such people.

Nothing to hide, nothing to fear, what arguments do you all use to get around this rather ignorant statement.

This type of rational upsets me, as well. It's basically stating that the government has my best interests at heart, and my government can do no wrong. It is a fool hardy stance to take.

If we allow the government to start peeling away our liberties, where does it end? It ends in either a dictatorship or a totalitarian government.

I just wish people wouldn't treat something as precious as our basic human rights and freedoms so lightly.

Just my two-cents.

Like I stated before on this site, as long as government can't be transparant and honest why would they have any right to watch my emails?

I am all fed up with this big brother stuff and we need to get our rights back.

The speech Peter Finch gave in Network was right, just as long as people are left alone in their homes they are willing to stay obedient slaves.

Guess what, they already want to know what you do on the net so I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore.

reply to post by Grey Magic

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Well if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear right? See this is my whole problem, whats a god arguement against that? I use a few as i stated earlier but it's never enough, people just think you're some kind of criminal if you don't want a chip in your arm, a camera in your home and a labotomy (note i've exaggerating for effect).

Than I would response to that quote of nothing to hide, nothing to fear with replacing it with this one.

"Any government that hides the truth must be feared."

Of course people say they have 'nothing to hide'. But there's a difference between having 'nothing to hide' and being comfortable without the illusions of privacy or anonymity. From "The End of America", by Naomi Wolf:

reply to post by Ian McLean

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Well isn't that my whole point. When i say i have nothing to hide i mean i have nothing that is illegal in my life. Anything anyone does will always have someone else morally against it. That is my greatest worry with this idea of nothing to hide, nothing to fear. Because once someone finds something you're ashamed of, like if you're heterosexual in public but homosexual in practice, then they have control over you. That is my biggest problemw ith all of this, the fact someone who is legally innocent but just ashamed of something private could be driven to follow the actions of the person who has dirt on them.

Be very careful with this arguement is my main point. It's a term that has been burnt into the minds of so many people who didn't stop to think about it.

throw this back at em

"In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up."

reply to post by pooty

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if you think that's a little vague tell him you'd like to place a video camera in his bedroom and his bathroom.Since he has nothing to hide you can sell the vids and make a few bucks.When he decides that may be going to far give him the other.All it takes is a foothold to get something started including taking spying on information as a start to the video camera in his bedroom whether he likes it or not as a step along the way.