If you have nothing to hide, why should you care about your privacy?

Last November, the UK passed the “Snoopers Charter” (Investigatory Powers Act; 2016). It allows the Government to vaccuum up personal information at an unprecedented level. To what end? The usual rationales are trotted out: “The War on Terror” and the pseudo-rationale of “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”. But, doesn’t that outlook basically accuse everybody of being a Terrorist &/or a Criminal? Is not being falsely accused of something – or even being stitched up for something you didn’t do a cause for worry – something to fear? Then, there is the “Minority Report” thing; using past Information to “predict” future miscreant behaviour. Trust me when i say that there are no Psychological Models that are sophisticated or advanced enough to make those kinds of Predictions; let alone using ESP skills.

Let me use a more immediate example: I have personally had 3 Stalkers. [Luckily, none of them were IT-Savvy]. One was an ex-girlfriend who stalked me for 3 years after she dumped me, got me back (admitted to the Stalking) and then dumped me a second time. The third was less terrifying and Stalked me for 18 months. The second was truly terrifying and stalked me for 5 years. She changed jobs 5 times and moved home 3 times in order to “be close to me…”. I only found out that she had been Stalking me from her brother – who blew the gaffe on her – and, all of that time, i was completely unaware that she had been Stalking me. When her bro showed me hundreds of photographs that she had taken of me without my awareness and pointed out that she had a Shrine to me – i freaked out, to say the least. After i found out that she had actually been sacrificing small animals at her Shrine, i went into super-freak-out mode. [Yes, this sounds like some Hollywood guff, but it actually happened].Now tell me that Security isn’t important.