The most basic and common argument in defence of surveillance is that “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.”
This argument is fundamentally flawed because we might not all plot terror attacks.
Still, there may be things that we would rather keep to ourselves and not have others know.
Shame is a massive aspect of our lives; what we might think is worthy of hiding is not the same as what somebody else might assume about our hiding.
We all have boundaries—spaces within which we do not want the whole world traipsing.
It’s the same reason we lock our doors—physical, mental, or virtual.
You see, at the end of the day, we are all weird and we must be allowed to be weird without worrying about whether or not somebody else is watching us.
We behave differently when we know that someone is watching us.
We make choices and take actions that we believe would be socially acceptable—not necessarily what we want to choose or do.
So we need that space where we are on our own and free to be ourselves without anybody watching.