My New Favorite Analogy For Opposing Privacy Intrusion

I have a new favorite analogy for protesting privacy invasions that are done in the name of security, courtesy of darleen click commenting on a Volokh post about intellectual property:

I have a great way to cut down on undiscovered crime — we all must provide copies of our house keys to our local police departments and never bar them from rummaging through our homes to make sure we are law-abiding.

I mean, if you don’t have anything to hide, why should you object? The local government only has your best interests at heart…

I’ve tried to explain before why I oppose the government reading my emails or patting my genitals under the guise of defending the nation, even if I have nothing to hide. I usually try to explain this position with philosophical ramblings about how a government bureaucrat’s definition of “doing something wrong” may be different from mine, but I don’t know that I always get my point across very well.

So I think this analogy of giving copies of your house keys to the police department is incredibly brilliant because I think more people would naturally object to it for the very same fundamental reasons I object to the privacy intrusions of the TSA or the Patriot Act – but this analogy makes those reasons more obvious. The greatest hurdle is getting people to see past “If I have nothing to hide, what do I have to worry about?”

1. The cost of inconvenience. I think most people would say, “I don’t have anything to hide from the local police, but it would just be so inconvenient to have them barge into my house unannounced to go searching for stuff while I’m eating dinner or trying to sleep.” Exactly.

2. The potential for abuse. I think most people would say, “I don’t have anything to hide from the local police, but I don’t want them keeping a copy of my house key. I mean, what if they lose it and it gets in the wrong hands? What if somebody comes in my house while I’m not here and takes my stuff?” Exactly.

3. Reasonable expectations of a right to privacy. I think most people would say, “I don’t have anything to hide from the local police, but why do they need to be rummaging through my house? It’s reasonable to expect that someone might photograph me while I’m walking down a street, but inside my own house I don’t think anyone should be keeping tabs on everything that I’m doing unless they have a really good reason.” Exactly.

I don’t want to have to take all my clothes off at the airport because it’s a huge inconvenience, even though I have nothing to hide. I don’t want the government listening to my phone calls because of the potential for somebody to abuse the information they gather from me, even if I have nothing to hide. I don’t want the government to know everything that I do because I don’t think they have any reason to know what I’m doing, even if I have nothing to hide.

There might still be people out there who would say, “Hey, man, people are making bombs in their houses! The government can invade my house any time it wants if it saves me from somebody making a bomb!” But I think most people would look at the level of danger and compare it to the costs of inconvenience and potential abuse, combined with the fundamental right to privacy, and conclude that such a practice would not provide enough security to make the loss of freedom worth the cost. So thanks again, darleen, for that wonderful analogy.