"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hie is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." -E. Snowden
And actually, most people have nothing to say. See China, for an example. Most people want peace, security and to create a home in which to raise children. They care, but not very strongly, for the rights of minorities the environment and other things you might need freedom of speech to advocate. Freedom of speech and civil liberties are luxuries that can be sacrificed, as we see each time a new dictatorship is cheered forward by the masses. Most people are not idealistic, and have higher priorities than freedom.
If we want to preserve these rights we can't just appeal to their utility for the individual.
Free speech in a country that goes authoritarian is very harmful for your career. People in power have connections, they can make it hard for you to make a living without even breaking the law, just asking the right people for a favor. Anonymity is one of the things that make people more likely to say what's need to be said.
Without protection of privacy - very few people will exercise their free speech when things get hard.
Maybe these types of people would not have power if everyone knew who they really where.
That said I understand people who are afraid that loss of privacy would be asymmetric but I don't think that would happen. Celebrities and public figures will always have less privacy than everyone else.
> I understand people who are afraid that loss of privacy would be asymmetric but I don't think that would happen
If Trump wants to know your tax returns - he will. You don't know his, no matter how much you want to.
And anyway, Trump insist he could murder someone and give himself a pardon. You can't. So, even if the information flow is symetric - the consequences aren't.
Sure, but his point was that you don't give up rights to the government simply because you have no use for them. Other people do. If you don't defend them, they get eroded and society regresses. History shows us this.
It's still about the basic human dignity, you loose it once you don't have free speech or the right to privacy. Would you feel dignified if you were forced to go around with a huge hole in your pants without the ability to "cover your ass"?
> Right to privacy affects my ability to cover my own ass.
Actually this isn't the most important reason for privacy.
Privacy and other basic rights do very little for me as an random law-abiding dude. I don't break laws, so don't have any reason to cover my ass. I don't have much to say, so not being allowed to express my opinion doesn't seem like that big of a deal. Even in the doomsday scenario where evil totalitarian dictator takes over the country and mass-surveils everyone and otherwise stomps on our rights, it probably won't be that big a deal to lowly me.
The most important reason for protecting individual privacy is to protect the future of society and civilization itself. The average dude in Nazi Germany and Pol Pot era Cambodia probably barely noticed his loss of individual rights as far as daily life was concerned. Mass surveillance enables mass control, and the worst atrocities in history have all happened in environments where individual rights - including privacy - were disregarded. It's bigger than just me. It's about protecting society itself and giving my children a decent world to live in.
If we want to preserve these rights we can't just appeal to their utility for the individual.