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"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."

-- Edward Snowden

With regards to the FBI not caring about your legal activities, I recommend you look into the FBI blackmailing of Martin Luther King Jr. and COINTELPRO more generally. Their historic behavior doesn't exactly warrant trust.



Hiding something and expressing something are so nearly opposite that I don't see how Snowden's analogy holds


What he is doing is simply restating the "I have nothing to hide" argument in the context of a different right, in this case the right to free speech. He is doing so to illustrate that the argument is not presenting a justification for the systemic violation of a human right but instead relying on an unstated assertion that the a given persons disinterest in a specific legal protection is an adequate pretext for its removal.


That actually makes sense. Thank you for your reply.


My pleasure




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