@dreamerx
There is, simply, no way to ignore privacy. Because a citizenry’s freedoms are inter-
dependent, to surrender your own privacy is really to surrender everyone’s. You might
choose to give it up out of convenience, or under the popular pretext that privacy is
only required by those who have something to hide. But saying that you don’t need or
want privacy because you have nothing to hide is to assume that no one should have, or
could have, to hide anything—including their immigration status, unemployment histo-
ry, financial history, and health records. You’re assuming that no one, including yourself,
might object to revealing to anyone information about their religious beliefs, political
affiliations, and sexual activities, as casually as some choose to reveal their movie and
music tastes and reading preferences.

Ultimately, saying that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to
hide is no different from saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you
have nothing to say. Or that you don’t care about freedom of the press because you
don’t like to read. Or that you don’t care about freedom of religion because you don’t
believe in God. Or that you don’t care about the freedom to peaceably assemble
because you’re a lazy, antisocial agoraphobe. Just because this or that freedom might
not have meaning to you today doesn’t mean that it doesn’t or won’t have meaning
tomorrow, to you, or to your neighbor—or to the crowds of principled dissidents I was
following on my phone who were protesting halfway across the planet, hoping to gain
just a fraction of the freedoms that my country was busily dismantling.