There’s an argument that comes up every single time a new surveillance law gets proposed and it drives me absolutely crazy. It goes something like this: “I don’t care if they track me, I’ve got nothing to hide.” And people say it like it completely settles the debate. Like privacy is only something criminals need and the rest of us should just be fine with whoever wants to look at whatever they want whenever they want.
It’s one of the weakest arguments you can make and here’s why. Having nothing to hide has nothing to do with it. Privacy isn’t about hiding wrongdoing. It’s about basic human dignity. You probably don’t do anything embarrassing in your bathroom either, but you still close the door. You’re not ashamed of anything that happens in your bedroom but you still have walls. Privacy is normal. It’s not suspicious. The idea that wanting it means you must be up to something is just a manipulation tactic and its a pretty effective one because it puts people on the defensive when they have no reason to be.
The government has a long history of using fear to push through legislation that erodes privacy, usually by framing it around something that nobody wants to defend against. The Patriot Act is the most obvious example. September 11th happens, the country is in shock and grief, and suddenly there’s this massive piece of legislation that dramatically expands government surveillance powers getting rushed through Congress. And people went along with it because they were scared and because it was framed as protection. Did most people read it carefully? Did most people understand what they were agreeing to? Not really. They just wanted to feel safe.
And then that infrastructure stuck around long after the immediate crisis passed and got used for all kinds of things that had nothing to do with the original stated purpose.
The same pattern is playing out right now in different forms. Palantir, a data company with ties to Peter Thiel, built something called Immigration OS in partnership with ICE. The tool basically aggregates data from every available database with no restrictions and builds deep profiles on individuals. It was used to track and deport undocumented immigrants, which a lot of people supported because they saw it as enforcing the law. But the question that doesn’t get asked enough is what happens to that tool once that specific use case is done? They’re not going to delete it. They’re going to find the next application for it. And the next one after that.
That’s how this always works. You build the tool for a purpose that has broad public support, you get people comfortable with it existing, and then it expands. Britain did something similar with their Online Safety Act which was sold as protecting children online but pretty quickly started being used to restrict and censor content around the Israel-Gaza conflict. The motive behind these laws is usually a lot more expansive than the stated reason and the stated reason is almost always something that sounds completely unobjectionable.
Investigative journalism is another thing that takes a real hit when privacy erodes. Journalists investigating powerful people need to be able to work without being watched. If the person you’re investigating can see what you’re doing before you’re ready to publish, they can shut you down. The Epstein files are a pretty good example of how that plays out. The promise was transparency but what actually got released was heavily redacted in ways that protected the powerful and left victims exposed. The whole point of privacy protections is that they apply equally, and when they stop applying equally is when things get dangerous.
The bottom line is that every time you hear “we’re doing this to protect children” or “only criminals need privacy,” you should slow down and look at what’s actually in the legislation. Because the thing they’re protecting you from today is almost never the only thing the law ends up being used for.
