Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have 'Nothing to Hide'

Why Privacy Matters Even If You have "Nothing to Hide" was written by Daniel J. Solove, who is  currently John Marshall Harlan research professor of law at the George Washington University Law School. In the beginning of the essay, the author state the topic that if people should care about their privacy when the government gathers or analyzes personal information. Many people are not worried because they think they have got nothing to hide, and believe once they should worry only if they did something wrong. However, Daniel holds opposite opinion that people should pay attention to their privacy even if they have nothing to hide, the government can cause you lot of harm....

I generally agree with the author before I read the essay. Everyone is a distinctive individual because everyone has his or her own stories. And everyone has personal secrets which are significant in some cases. We should give ourselves and others private space. Although the fact that "if you have nothing to hide, then that quite literally means you are willing to let me photograph you  naked? And I get full rights to that photograph－so I can show it to your neighbors?" is pretty extreme, we have to admit nearly no one could have nothing to hide.

In order to prove that privacy is still should be concerned, Daniel declares the government in formation gathering programs are problematic though no information that people want to hide is uncovered, he gives four harms caused by this type of data collection the government used. They are aggregation, exclusion, guilt by association, and distortion. Take the aggregation as an example, since the program collects our living activities, it can also connect these information and then come out some results. These results may cover our personal secrets that we refuse to share. The author give assumption the support the point: if you bought a book about cancer, that won't raise any flags, but if you bought a wig as well, that suggest your are undergoing chemotherapy which may not want to be known. Moreover, he also gives a lot of assumptions in the end of essay to persuade the audiences such as "What if government considers you are engage in a criminal act due to your activities by mistake. 

In conclusion, Daniel did good job in this essay. Mostly he introduces and explains his points based on our social life. Also, not only does he argue directly for his position with reasonable evidence, but anticipates the opposing argument. For instance, Daniel uses the Orwell metaphor, which focus on the harms of surveillance, to stated the importance of government gathering system. Besides, he explained the shortages of the system, which indirectly and credibly convinced the readers. Therefore, anticipating the opposing arguments may also help us prove our points in some case.