Nothing to Hide

I’ve heard this phrase, “Why should I worry? I have nothing to hide,” more often than I am comfortable with. This is a clear declaration of innocence with an assumption that the only reason one would have to worry about any sort of repercussions is if they committed a crime. But what constitutes a crime? And where is this strange misunderstanding that authority has never cared much about “laws” and other such nonsense, before moving in on someone?

Of course, the people who say they have “nothing to hide” do not believe for a second that authority would come after them illegally, on a whim, or for nefarious reasons. Anyone who thinks such things is a paranoid conspiracy theorist and is over-reacting. “You’ve seen too many spy movies,” they might say—movies about East Germany or the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Only those oppressive sorts of governments would do such things, and here in North America (Canada and the US), we are immune from such shenanigans. “We are past that kind of cloak-and-dagger crap,” they might say. In fact, I doubt if they believe this sort of thing happens anywhere in the world in the 21st Century (authority herding up people to persecute for no specific breach of any law). Maybe in North Korea or certain parts of the Middle East with terrorists and such, but nowhere in the civilized world. Talk about naive.