I really like Daniel Solove's paper on this question, "I've Got Nothing to Hide" and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy. In it, he cites the kind of response mo

I really like Daniel Solove's paper on this question, "I've Got Nothing to Hide" and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy. In it, he cites the kind of response most people here have given as common and effective in the extreme case, but also notes that the flip responses such as "well then, let me read your email" don't work for stronger, subtler versions of the "nothing to hide" argument. The gist of the paper is that the easy answers already concede too much; they admit a very narrow definition of privacy. Namely, that privacy is the right of seclusion. Instead, he advances a broader conception of privacy (from his longer Taxonomy of Privacy) and identifies societal goods from privacy. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565