Nothing-to-hide argument

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The nothing-to-hide argument says that state and official surveillance is only suitable for uncovering illegal activities and does not affect anyone who behaves in accordance with the rules. According to this argument, illegal activities should not remain hidden from the authorities because of the protection of privacy ; the support of state surveillance can be justified with it. A person who believes they have “nothing to hide” can use this argument to explain why they are not concerned about government surveillance.

The motto “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear” has been used in the video surveillance program in the UK .

distribution

The argument is often used in discussions about privacy. Geoffrey Stone , an American legal scholar, said that the use of this argument was far too widespread. Bruce Schneier , an IT security expert and cryptographer , described it as "the most widely used response to privacy advocates"; Colin J. Bennett , author of The Privacy Advocates , said privacy advocates constantly have to refute this argument. Bennett explained that most people went through their daily lives believing that surveillance mechanisms were directed not at them but at villains and malefactors , despite evidence that monitoring of individual behavior had become a daily routine .

ethnography

An ethnographic study on the integration of online services into everyday life was published in 2004. According to Kirsty Best, author of Living in the control society Surveillance, users and digital screen technologies , full-time workers with middle to higher incomes expressed similar notions that they would not be the target of surveillance as other respondents who expressed concerns. “In these cases, the respondents stated that they took the view that they were not doing anything wrong or that they had nothing to hide.” From the group of participants in the Viseus study, one person stated that they use technologies to improve privacy. The scientists summarized that "one of the simplest characteristics of the perception and implementation of the privacy of our subjects [...] was their passivity towards the case". Passivity stems from the “nothing to hide” argument.

During a qualitative study conducted around 2003 for the UK government by Dr. Perri 6 presented four perspectives on privacy risks, including a mapping of attitudes towards privacy in eight parts. According to the study, self-employed men first used the “nothing to hide” argument before switching to an argument that viewed surveillance as a nuisance rather than a threat.

Effect on privacy protection

Viseu et al. stated that the argument was well documented in the privacy literature as an obstacle to the development of pragmatic privacy protection strategies, and that it was also related to the ambiguous, symbolic nature of the term 'privacy' itself. They stated that privacy is an abstract one Concept is and people would only worry if their privacy was gone, and they likened the loss of privacy to people who know the ozone hole and global warming are negative developments but the immediate gains of driving to work or using hairspray will outweigh the often invisible loss of pollution.

Arguments for and against

For privacy

"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."

"To argue that you don't need privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don't need freedom of expression because you have nothing to say."

- Edward Snowden

Daniel J. Solove stated in an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education that he is against this argument. He stated that the US government could leak information about a person , cause harm to the person, or use the information about a person to prevent access to certain services even if that person has not shown wrongdoing, and that the government can also damage private life by making mistakes. Solove wrote: “Immediately drawn in, which the nothing-to-hide argument tempts us to do, it forces the debate to be reduced to the small part of the understanding of privacy. But confronted with the plurality of privacy problems that state data collection entails and their users go beyond monitoring and disclosure, the nothing-to-hide argument ultimately has nothing to say. "

Danah Boyd , a social media researcher, disagrees with the argument. She says that although people often felt immune to government surveillance for not doing anything wrong, an entity or group could defame a person's image and damage their reputation, or guilt through association could be used to defame a person.

Adam D. Moore , author of Privacy Rights: Morals and Legal Foundations , argued, “It is the [general] view that rights are resistant to cost / benefit or consequentialist type of arguments. Here we contradict the view that privacy interests are the kind of thing that can be traded for security. ”He also explained that surveillance can disproportionately affect certain groups based on their appearance, ethnicity and religion. Moore noted that there were at least three other problems with the "nothing-to-hide" argument. First, if individuals have a right to privacy, then the call to have “nothing to hide” is irrelevant. Privacy, understood as the right to access and use areas, places and personal information, means that it is the legal owner who controls access. To support this point, Moore gives the following example: “Imagine you walk out of your house one day and find a person who is meticulously searching your trash and putting together shredded notes and documents. In response to your stunned silence, the person declares, 'You have nothing to worry about - there is no need to hide anything, is there?' "Second, people may wish for embarrassing behavior or behavior that was not taken from the" Mainstream culture 'is accepted to hide. “Take into account a person's sexual or medical history. Imagine someone visiting a library to learn about alternative lifestyles that are not accepted by the majority. ”Ultimately, Moore argues that“ nothing to hide ”when taken seriously against government officials, politicians and CEOs could be used. This turns the "nothing-to-hide" argument on its head. Moore argues that NSA agents, politicians, police chiefs, and CEOs have nothing to hide, so they should embrace total transparency, like the rest of us. "But they don't, and when they get the technological tools to watch them, politicians, police chiefs or CEOs are almost always convinced that watching others is a good thing."

Bruce Schneier , a computer security expert and cryptographer , disagreed with the argument by citing Cardinal Richelieu's statement, "Give me six lines written by the most honest person, and I'll find something in it to hang him up," which Refers to how a government can find aspects in a person's life for prosecution or blackmail. Schneier also argued: “Too many incorrectly characterize the debate as 'security versus privacy'. The right choice is freedom versus control. "

Emilio Mordini , philosopher and psychoanalyst , argued that the "nothing-to-hide" argument is paradoxical in itself. People don't have to have “something to hide” in order to hide “something”. What is relevant is not what is hidden, but the experience that there is an intimate space that could be hidden and access to which could be restricted. Psychologically speaking, we become private individuals through the experience that we can hide something from others.

Julian Assange explains: “There is still no 'killer' answer. Jacob Appelbaum (@ioerror) came up with a clever answer by asking people who said this to give him their unlocked cellphone and pull down their panties. My version of this is, 'well, if you are so boring we shouldn't be talking to you and neither should anyone else,' but philosophically the correct answer is: mass surveillance is a massive structural change. If society changes for the worse, you will be drawn to it, even if you are the least interesting person in the world. "

Against privacy

Eric Schmidt , then CEO of Google , said, “If you have something you don't want everyone to know, maybe you shouldn't do it in the first place. But if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines , including Google, keep this information for some time, and it is important, for example, that we in the US are all subject to the Patriot Act . It is possible that this information will be made available to authorities. ”However, after CNET published an article with personal details about Schmidt, in 2005 all CNET reporters were blacklisted, preventing them from speaking to Google employees.

In discussing the MAINWAY program, former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said, “What are people worried about? What is the problem? Are you doing something wrong that you shouldn't be doing? "

Johann Hari , a British author, argued that the “nothing to hide” argument is irrelevant to the placement of CCTV cameras in public spaces in the UK because the cameras observe public places where many people are watching that one does not trust and not in “places where one hides”.

history

In the memorandum, The Brass Check , published in 1919, Upton Sinclair wrote of the Lexington Avenue explosion in 1914:

"From first to last I had nothing to hide, and for that reason I had nothing to fear, and this was as well known to the newspapers as it was to the police who were probing the explosion."

"From start to finish, I had nothing to hide and therefore I had nothing to fear, and this was known to the newspapers as well as the police who investigated the explosion."

- Upton Sinclair

See also

literature

  • Colin J. Bennett, The Privacy Advocates: Resisting the Spread of Surveillance. MIT Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-262-26042-8 .
  • Kirsty Best: Living in the control society: Surveillance, users and digital screen technologies . In: International Journal of Cultural Studies . tape 13 , no. 1 , January 6, 2010, p. 5-24 , doi : 10.1177 / 1367877909348536 .
  • Emilio Mordini: Nothing to Hide - Biometrics, Privacy and Private Sphere. In: Ben Schouten, Niels Christian Juul, Andrzej Drygajlo, Massimo Tistarelli (Eds.): Biometrics and Identity Management: First European Workshop, BIOID 2008, Roskilde, Denmark, May 7–9, 2008, Revised Selected Papers. Springer Science + Business Media, 2008, ISBN 978-3-540-89990-7 , pp. 245-258.
  • Adam D. Moore: Privacy Rights: Moral and Legal Foundations. Penn State Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-271-03686-1 .
  • Privacy Online: OECD Guidance on Policy and Practice. OECD Publishing, 2003. ISBN 92-64-10163-2 .
  • Daniel J. Solove: Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff Between Privacy and Security. Yale University Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-300-17231-7 .
  • Ana Viseu, Andrew Clement, Jane Aspinall: Situating Privacy Online . In: Information, Communication & Society . tape 7 , no. 1 , 2004, ISSN  1369-118X , p. 92-114 , doi : 10.1080 / 1369118042000208924 .

further reading

  • Sascha Klein: “I've got nothing to hide”: Electronic surveillance of communications, privacy and the power of arguments. GRIN Verlag, 2012, ISBN 978-3-656-17913-9 .
  • Daniel J. Solove: I've Got Nothing to Hide 'and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy. In: San Diego Law Review. Volume 44, 2007. p. 745. ISSN  0036-4037 . Accession Number 31197940. George Washington University Law School Public Law Research Paper No. 289. ( papers.ssrn.com ).
  • Surveillance and "Nothing to Hide". ( Memento from June 25, 2013 on WebCite ) [PDF - Powerpoint Presentation] CSE / ISE 312: Legal, Social, and Ethical Issues. Stony Brook University.
  • Adam Moore: Privacy, Security, and Government Surveillance: WikiLeaks and the New Accountability. In: Public Affairs Quarterly. Volume 25, April 2011, pp. 141-156.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mordini: p. 252 ( books.google.com ).
  2. ^ Daniel J. Solove: Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff Between Privacy and Security. P. 1 ( books.google.com ).
  3. ↑ a b c d e Daniel J. Solove: Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have 'Nothing to Hide'. ( chronicle.com ).
  4. ^ Bennett, p. 97 ( books.google.com ).
  5. ^ Bennett, pp. 97-98 ( books.google.com - books.google.com ).
  6. ^ Ana Viseu, Andrew Clement, Jane Aspinall: Situating Privacy Online . In: Information, Communication & Society . tape 7 , no. 1 , 2004, p. 92-114 , doi : 10.1080 / 1369118042000208924 .
  7. ↑ Best, p. 12.
  8. ↑ Viseu, et al. Pp. 102-103.
  9. ↑ Viseu, et al. P. 102.
  10. ↑ a b c Viseu et al. P. 103.
  11. ↑ a b OECD: Appendix II: Can We Be Persuaded to Become Pet-Lovers? P. 323 ( books.google.com ).
  12. ↑ OECD: Appendix II: Can We Be Persuaded to Become Pet-Lovers? P. 305 ( books.google.com ).
  13. ↑ OECD: Appendix II: Can We Be Persuaded to Become Pet-Lovers? P. 326 ( books.google.com ).
  14. ↑ Just days left to kill mass surveillance under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. We are Edward Snowden and the ACLU's Jameel Jaffer. AUA. • / r / IAmA .
  15. ↑ a b c d e Moore, p. 204 ( books.google.com ).
  16. ^ Mordini: Nothing to Hide - Biometrics, Privacy and Private Sphere. Pp. 257-260.
  17. ↑ Courage Foundation: Reddit AMA . Archived from the original on April 10, 2015. Retrieved on April 8, 2015.
  18. ↑ Jared Newman: Google's Schmidt Roasted for Privacy Comments . In: PCWorld . December 11, 2009 ( pcworld.com [accessed June 17, 2017]).
  19. ↑ Google blackballs reporters, CNET - Aug. 5, 2005 .
  20. ^ BellSouth denies giving records to NSA . In: CNN . Retrieved May 15, 2006. 
  21. ^ Upton Sinclair: The Brass Check . the author, Pasadena, CA 1919, p. 194 ( archive.org ).