This is perhaps a more common opinion than you think. Making it easy to catch bad guys is enough reason. I don't know how to effectively convince someone that the ease of law enforcement comes at the expense of liberty, which so many of the aforementioned opinion-holders also claim to be concerned about. I feel like it should be self-evident, that law enforcement and liberty are mutually exclusive, and that we have things like warrants to allow that infringement on liberty in very narrow circumstances. Dragnet surveillance is warrant-less evidence gathering.
>Because they're convinced that because they have nothing to hide, the law will never turn against them.
Yeah, this is a tough one to counter for me. Trying to identify a specific thing they do that may become of interest to a specific abuse of law enforcement.
The easy counter-argument to this, which Mr. Stanks alludes to, is that there's a difference between giving everyone data, and giving law enforcement data.
I mean, one thing you can look at is news stories about the police grabbing the wrong person, trying to find someone who's as much like them as possible - but any example can be rationalized away.
It's interesting. No one is a 100% law-abiding citizen. You can see this in traffic, for example, when a driver gets upset about pedestrians ignoring red lights, while they themselves are driving a few miles per hour over the speed limit and have the number right in front of them. The transgressions of others should always be severely punished. One's own transgressions are minor trifles that are not worth mentioning, or small privileges that one naturally claims. And when one is penalized a little for one's own misconduct, e.g., with a fine, one acts as if one were a victim of fascist repression.
It is self-evident, and they are doublethinking. You can test this by telling them that police should be required to wear always-on body cams. See how they react to that.
Just ask him to show you his bank accounts / unrestricted access to phone / camera in bedroom. It is always funny to see these people bend into pretzels trying to justify why you should not see how much money is on their bank accounts while you are just repeating their own mantra that if they did not do anything illegal, why they are worried about it?
The easy counter-argument to this, which Mr. Stanks alludes to, is that there's a difference between giving everyone data, and giving law enforcement data.