What the 'if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear from surveillance' argument says about the person using it

People like to think they can have predictability and consistancy in their contact with others, being an unpredictable person makes others nervous of you. To be deemed a liar is to be deemed unpredictable, it makes it seem as though you lie about everything you say.




However, it's not possible to be truthful about everything, there are some things you don't want others to know about you. But whether it's taking stationary from work, or having a brush with the police when you were younger, everyone has something they don't want shouted from the rooftops. It would make normal, credible people seem dishonest.



This creates a paradox, we want to know who is dishonest, but at the same time we know that everyone is, and it is this inconsistancy that people find difficult to come to terms with. Dishonest people are seen as inconsistant, but if no one is 100% honest, that makes for a very unpredictable society, which frightens people.



Some people don't want to accept that nobody is perfect, they want to root out and pass judgment on others they deem to be more badly behaved than they are, and they want to see them punished.



I'm sure everyone knows or has come across a 'little Hitler', those who go to ridiculous lengths to enforce even the smallest of rules, and it seems to be these types of personalities that are driving the surveillance culture.



I'm sure the little Hitlers have plenty of justifications for enforcing every rule in the book, but they cannot reconcile that they also do things that are wrong, and if they do recognise it they still want others to view them as whiter than white. They have such a low self esteem they feel they must put other people down in order to make themselves look and feel better.



No one knows every law, and if every law was enforced the criminal justice system would be enormous, we would no longer be able to single out those who had been to prison because we'd all have been punished for one thing or another. The whole country would be an authoritarian prison state, with all of us criminals to some varying degree.



If the little Hitlers are whiter than white, I don't believe them. I want to look into their bank accounts, phone records, internet history, medical records etc, etc, etc, I'm sure I'd find something. This is the problem though, the people in power can already do this. The little Hitlers wouldn't want me to have access to all that information about them, so why do they think it's OK for my information to be available, especially to people who have the power to socially control me.



To use this weak and implausable 'if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear from surveillance' argument is a smokescreen, to divert attention away from the vengance mentality that the person holds. If this is the best argument that is put forward for surveillance, I think it is time we stopped it in it's tracks.