Over the last few years a trend has grown, not only in the U.S., but in virtually all developed areas of the world, toward less privacy and more government intrusion into the personal lives of their citizen-subjects. Governments claim the power to make these intrusions in the name of security, and those who support the intrusions into personal privacy generally justify it by saying, “If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear.”
The truth is that the innocent actually do have something to fear from state intrusion into their private lives.
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. — Thomas Jefferson
The first thing one must realize is that it does happen here. Government abuse of power happens. That they’re American bureaucrats doesn’t make them any less prone to abusing whatever power and authority they have been granted or have seized for themselves. The long chain of abuses stretches from the birth of the nation right through to the present day, and from the bottom to the top. Open any newspaper from any day of any year and you’ll find at least one, if not several.
The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse. — James Madison
It seems to be something in human nature to want to exercise power, and stretch it to its limits — and beyond. This is why the power granted to the federal government was supposed to be strictly limited and enumerated. And indeed, the people in the federal government have been exercising and stretching the limits of their power from day one. The founders would hardly recognize the government we have today and would be utterly shocked that we the people let it go on this long, when the war we fought for independence from Britain was for far less than we the people labor under today.
Abuse of power isn’t limited to bad guys in other nations. It happens in our own country if we’re not vigilant. — Thomas Edison
So, let’s take a look at whether innocent people have anything to hide.
This is a version of the very popular “The innocent have nothing to fear” argument, which is wheeled out whenever authorities wish to bring in new measures which increase surveillance or limit freedoms in the name of increasing security. For example, someone demands to search your luggage. You object to this intrusion on your privacy, but you are told that if you are innocent, you have no reason to object. After all, what are you trying to hide?
The argument is a particular species of false dichotomy. You are presented with a simple either/or choice. Either you’re guilty, and so should be exposed; or you are innocent, in which case nothing will be exposed, and so you have nothing to worry about. Either way, you have no legitimate reason to be concerned. Like all false dichotomies, the problem is that there is at least one more option than the two offered in the either/or choice. — Julian Baggini
What other option is there? There’s the very real possibility that you are innocent, and yet will be persecuted by the authorities anyway. And much of the time, the authorities will win. Consider Milwaukee, Wis., where police have a license to kill anyone they feel like killing, such as Frank Jude, whom police severely beat almost to death for the crime of driving while black. The officers in the case were acquitted by an all-white jury. One of the other officers in that case shot and killed another man, Larry Jenkins, for the crime of not driving while black. He was acquitted in that case, too. Sound like something out of Mississippi? It isn’t. This sort of thing happens all the time, all over the country.
It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power. — John Adams
Former Federal Bureau of Investigation director J. Edgar Hoover was famous for abusing his power, as was his president, Richard Nixon. And so were countless bureaucrats before and after them. In 2004 and 2005, the FBI arrested and convicted 1,060 of them, in fact. Despite making corruption in government one of their top priorities just behind counterterrorism, the FBI has hardly made a dent in the problem, and humans being what they are, they probably never will.
The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first. — Thomas Jefferson
So why should innocent people insist on keeping things private from the government? Privacy helps to prevent these sorts of abuses of power. Our founders understood this. They insisted that we should always distrust our government, even though it may be constituted of our representatives, because they’re only human, after all.
Our country was founded on a distrust of government. Our founding fathers gave power to the people to keep an eye on government. So when politicians say, “Trust me,” they’re actually being very un-American. — David Duchovny
Back then, you had innocent people deported to England to stand trial on trumped-up charges. Today you have innocent people railroaded into guilty pleas by legal maneuvering, innocent people on death row for defending themselves from abuse of power, innocent people in Guantanamo Bay without a trial at all.
You’re not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong no matter who does it or who says it. — Malcolm X
You think you’re so innocent, try proving it. That’s what “nothing to hide” is about: destroying the notion of innocent until proven guilty, meant to protect we the people from abuse of power, and instituting the barbaric notion of guilty until proven innocent, where anyone can be searched, anyone can be seized, and sometimes, even the trial can be dispensed with. It’s about getting Americans used to the idea of proving their innocence at every opportunity, putting them on trial at the airport or at the roadside. After all, anybody who doesn’t want to prove their innocence must be guilty of something.
It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one. — Voltaire
I reject the notion of guilty until proven innocent, and every American should as well. If you think I’m guilty, you prove it. I have nothing to prove. And I may have nothing to hide either, but you can’t see it.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. — Thomas Jefferson
And now if you’ll excuse me, there’s an out of control government I need to attend to.
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The end of a war, to most people, means all the troops come home, out of harm's way. It means we stop killing people and getting killed. It means we stop sending troops and armed personnel over and draining our treasury for military operations in that foreign land. But much like the infamous "mission accomplished" moment of the last administration, this "end" of the war also means none of those things.
How could giving more Americans an ownership stake in society be bad? When the housing market heated up to the breaking point everything came crashing down. Those suddenly facing foreclosure saw the reality of government compassion. Truly, when government offers you a gift, you should eye it with great suspicion.
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Charles Stricklin
May 14, 2006
I hope you’re not saying that Hoover was Nixon’s creation. Hoover had the dirt on presidents long before Nixon ever came to office.
Michael Hampton
May 14, 2006
Charles, I suggest no further relationship between Hoover and Nixon except that they were in their respective offices at the same time, and were both guilty of abuses of power in their own ways.
oppressed by Bush
May 14, 2006
If I may say so, great article Mr Hampton!
For those who have not seen it yet, I highly recommend watching the recent documentary/drama “The Road to Guantanamoâ€, to get an up-close view of what our US government calls “humane treatmentâ€.
Personally, I have never felt so ashamed to be an American until I saw this film. It’s like the Nazi era and the Russian gulags all over again, but this time it’s because of us. I was sick to my stomach in disbelief, to see how our government and military conducts its appalling treatment of people held in cages, without trial.
As far as I can tell, we are not too far from our own well-deserved fate. Now, since noncompliance will be regarded as a guilty plea, there will be no place to hide if we are innocent. Should we become a nuisance to our government in the future, they can execute an arrest warrant at will, by digging through all of our private records, until they can find some unbelievable, court-approved way to connect us with a terrorist organization. Even if they can’t get an arrest warrant, they can now simply “detain†us forever and ever, without legal proceeding, on any basis of belief or suspicion of terrorism–amen.
So basically, all they need to do is close their eyes and believe in our guilt and our world goes dark–this is how it all ends–this is what happens when we let our government protect us from fear.
Coming soon: death warrants and “where’s my family member?”
Scott
May 14, 2006
I live just outside of Milwaukee and I am deeply disturbed by not only both of these cases where the Officers were clearly guilty, and got off completely free, but what disturbs me even more is the fact that people carry on like it never happened. They are too busy listening to their iPods, and watching Will and Grace and don’t think that they have anything to worry about, and then they are shocked and outraged when it happens to them. People even let themselves be pushed around by anyone. The other day I went into Best Buy, purchased a DVD and when I got to the door they wanted to check my bag and receipt. I said no, and then they told me I had no choice. I said really, do you have probable cause? Oh wait you’re not a fucking cop, what the fuck are you going to do about it? He started to grab for the bag and I said hold the fuck on, if you so much as breathe on me, I will lay your ass into the ground. You have no grounds to search me, and since I just bought this DVD, I own it and you have no right to search me, or ask me to prove my ownership of it, because it is now private property. Prove to me you own your fucking Best Buy shirt. To which he replied, lets not cause a problem here, and I told him, I’m not the one causing a problem, you caused a fucking problem when you wanted to check my shit without probable cause. I just walked out, and he said he was calling the police. To which I replied, go right ahead, and get a good look at my fucking license plate too. The police never came to find me. But, what pissed me off about it was my girlfriend was mad and me, and said that I didn’t have anything to hide, and I should have let him search my bag. Well, needless to say her and I didn’t agree. But, it’s that type of mentality that has let this world get so fucked up and given the government too much power. What I don’t think people realize is that people, and the government only have as much power over us as we allow them to have. And that every single person is responsible for shaping the world they live in, and not just let it go to hell. Anyway, sorry about the tangent. Keep writing these great articles, and I will keep reading.
Take Care,
Scott
May 15, 2006
The Jawa Report
May 15, 2006
blog.kennypearce.net
tj
May 15, 2006
huzzah! excellent post, well written and EXACTLY what i’ve been thinking.
May 16, 2006
Below The Beltway » Blog Archive » Carnival Of Liberty XLV
May 19, 2006
Irregular Times: News Unfit for Print » Presumptions of Guilt: If You Have Nothing to Hide, You Have Everything to Fear
May 22, 2006
MacManX.com » Blogroll Dive: 5/22/06
May 24, 2006
Hammer of Truth » Congress Suddenly Constitution-Friendly?
May 26, 2006
What would James Bond do? - Homeland Stupidity
Anonymous
Jul 28, 2006
yep. fuck best buy. challenge everything.
kyle
Jun 21, 2007
i understand that we have to have laws and a government but when every moment of everyday politicians come up with laws that erode the constitution and take away personal freedom laws don’t make people safe laws make money for the government to waste
P. Pallino
Nov 01, 2007
Maintaining personal freedom when parliaments and governments are eager to make private life transparent in their combined quest for fighting terrorism, crime, tax evasion and — often enough — political opposition, is becoming more and more difficult.
The reason is lack of understanding (and hence concern) of the general public for the intricacies and subtleties of the computerized cobweb increasingly surrounding individuals.
It is true that video surveillance, DNA analysis and internet watchdogs have helped to solve many crime cases and might prevent more by deterring potential and real criminals and terrorists.
Since the general public is quite happy with this development it tends to ignore the danger of the tricks of ambitious bureaucrats and ruthless politicians who try and often succeed in finding still more efficient ways of prying into the private lives of their citizens.
Also, a new kind of competition among governments accelerates the run toward the goal of the totally transparent citizen: by jointly fighting international terror governments exchange relevant information on a scale never seen before.
The government of a given country might be stunned to discover that some of its allies in the fight against terror know much more about the country than its own agencies and secret services. This government will feel ashamed and incompetent if it has to ask its allies to help track down local terror cells or plain criminals.
Big brother is hence not only your own government but potentially others as well. Clearly, a government with an inferiority complex regarding its ability to spy on its citizens will redouble its efforts to match the abilities of its more “competent” allies.
This competition among governments is a direct result of the fight against terror and needs to be understood as well as watched.
Jan 29, 2008
5 GigaWatt Lizard » Mukasey: Longing for Mother England
Feb 14, 2008
“If you have nothing to hide… “