I think this article, "Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have 'Nothing to Hide'" [1], makes a compelling case. There are essentially two reasons why privacy is im

I think this article, "Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have 'Nothing to Hide'" [1], makes a compelling case. There are essentially two reasons why privacy is important. The first is that privacy can be used to 'hide bad things'. This is what the 'nothing to hide' argument addresses: if you don't do bad things, you should not worry about privacy. The problem is that not everyone agrees on which things are bad. For example, do you agree that the OWS protesters terrorists? But privacy is not just about hiding bad things. A multitude of innocuous facts about many people, collected in a database, are themselves a powerful tool. The data can be mined by governments to look for 'suspicious' behavior, by insurance companies to deny insurance, by criminals to commit fraud, etc. I think the basic problem is that violations of privacy give power in the hands governments and corporations, and these entities tend to abuse whatever power you give them. [1] http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127461/ http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127...