In May of last year, in a Reddit “ask us anything” with Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU, Edward Snowden introduced a compelling and epigrammatic rejoinder to the “nothing to hide” argument, which is so common in the debate on NSA mass surveillance:
“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.”
Snowden elaborated on this statement in a panel discussion on privacy with Noam Chomsky and Glenn Greenwald this past Friday, and his words, printed below, deserve attention. Snowden isn't making the mistake of insisting that everyone does, in fact, have things to hide, and therefore a direct self-interest in opposing mass surveillance. Although it's true that we all instinctively value privacy, and routinely take all sorts of measures to protect it, there are apparently many people (and here) who feel they have nothing to hide from the government specifically. This is the meaning that's implicit in the claim that one has nothing to hide when it's made in the context of the debate on NSA surveillance. The claim does not imply that one would be willing to reveal their personal information to anyone or everyone. (Benjamin Wittes does a good job making this point here. Also, for examples, see these two comments in the same Reddit thread.) So, it is useless to respond to the claim that one has “nothing to hide” by insisting that it’s false. As it's intended, the claim is actually true for most of us. Snowden is taking an entirely different approach, and it's one that could possibly succeed.
The full discussion can be seen here. Snowden is responding to a question that was posed at 23:03. His answer begins at 32:55. The following excerpt begins at 35:52.
Edward Snowden: And when I sort of follow this [the meaning of “privacy”], and I think about this in my own terms – particularly when we're confronted with the arguments of, sort of, apologists for the national security state, and the argument that was first proposed by the Nazis against privacy, which was “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear” – I would say that arguing that you don't care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying that you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say. Rights exist and have value for more than just the individual in the current moment. Rights are both individual and collective. And when you think about the value of a free press, we're not all journalists, but we still derive value from them. Moreover, rights are not really intended, rights are not really designed for use by the elites, for people who are leading our debates, because these are the people who are least threatened with the abrogation of their rights. The system exists to serve and protect these people. Rights are almost always needed on a regular, continual basis by those who are vulnerable, by those who are not protected by the system, by those who are not protected by their communities, by the people who are different, by the people who are ahead of everyone else because of a new idea, or people who are simply minorities, who don't have access to the same resources, don't have access to the same ability to compete. And to say fundamentally that you don't care about a right – even if it is truly of no value to you, because you're not using it in this current moment and you don't expect to use it in the future – is probably the most antisocial thing I can imagine.