If you disagree with “anyone who even tries to hide anything MUST be doing something wrong.”, then you disagree with it’s logically equivalent contraposition ‘If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide.’. And indeed you do, you say there are people who’ve done nothing wrong but do have something to hide. There’s no logical error, you just disagree with a premise.
It’s not so much a matter of disagreement as being able to come up with solid counterexamples that a theoretical ‘common person’ would agree with.
For instance: If you want to get someone a gift for a birthday, it is a common social convention that the exact gift should be kept a secret from the receiver until their birthday.
As ChristianKI indicated, sometimes you must keep secrets either for social or professional obligations. A good example would be where doctors are required to keep patient records from unauthorized access (by law, no less).
Normally, people dismiss these sorts of arguments with a simple, ‘Well, of course except for that.’ As we move into the future, however, where technology increases to the point where surveillence is pervasive, is the only privacy we’re going to have remaining going to occur in doctor’s offices?
Oh, I thought your main concern was about the logic, not the propositions.
Cases where you done nothing wrong yet have something to hide:
The bathroom window of my house doesn’t close well, just push the top from outsides and it’ll come open. Also I’m on holidays the first two weeks of November.
Harry Potter dies in the next HPMOR chapter
I’m actually really desperate for this job and would actually accept half the salary I’m asking for
I actually find your conversation extremely boring
Normally, people dismiss these sorts of arguments with a simple, ‘Well, of course except for that.’
I don’t think it’s that easy. I want the right to take note about secrets that my friends tell me in my evernote account. I want to be able to take those notes without violating a promise that I gave my friend to keep his secret.
Let’s say Alice confines her friends Bob and Coral that she has a drug problem. She’s a cocaine addict. She gets them to promise to keep the information secret.
In the current situation the two would violate that promise if they would talk about the problem on the telephone.
I think you could argue that there an implicit demand for that secrecy even if Alice doesn’t specifically ask for secrecy.
Communicating the information on an unencrypted channel is morally questionable.
Bob is not allowed to just call Alice and ask her whether she succeeded in being clean for the last days.
Bob has the choice between, establishing an encrypted channel to talk to Alice, not help her by providing social support on the issue over the telephone or violating his secrecy promise.
If Alice wants to get a security clearance for her job she might be out of luck if the conversation with Bob is captured by government computers.
When talking about people who claim they have nothing to hide, I think that’s the best strategy. Showing them how they potentially hurt other people or at least break promises they make to other people.
If you disagree with “anyone who even tries to hide anything MUST be doing something wrong.”, then you disagree with it’s logically equivalent contraposition ‘If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide.’. And indeed you do, you say there are people who’ve done nothing wrong but do have something to hide. There’s no logical error, you just disagree with a premise.
It’s not so much a matter of disagreement as being able to come up with solid counterexamples that a theoretical ‘common person’ would agree with.
For instance: If you want to get someone a gift for a birthday, it is a common social convention that the exact gift should be kept a secret from the receiver until their birthday.
As ChristianKI indicated, sometimes you must keep secrets either for social or professional obligations. A good example would be where doctors are required to keep patient records from unauthorized access (by law, no less).
Normally, people dismiss these sorts of arguments with a simple, ‘Well, of course except for that.’ As we move into the future, however, where technology increases to the point where surveillence is pervasive, is the only privacy we’re going to have remaining going to occur in doctor’s offices?
Oh, I thought your main concern was about the logic, not the propositions.
Cases where you done nothing wrong yet have something to hide:
The bathroom window of my house doesn’t close well, just push the top from outsides and it’ll come open. Also I’m on holidays the first two weeks of November.
Harry Potter dies in the next HPMOR chapter
I’m actually really desperate for this job and would actually accept half the salary I’m asking for
I actually find your conversation extremely boring
I don’t think it’s that easy. I want the right to take note about secrets that my friends tell me in my evernote account. I want to be able to take those notes without violating a promise that I gave my friend to keep his secret.
Let’s say Alice confines her friends Bob and Coral that she has a drug problem. She’s a cocaine addict. She gets them to promise to keep the information secret. In the current situation the two would violate that promise if they would talk about the problem on the telephone.
I think you could argue that there an implicit demand for that secrecy even if Alice doesn’t specifically ask for secrecy.
Communicating the information on an unencrypted channel is morally questionable. Bob is not allowed to just call Alice and ask her whether she succeeded in being clean for the last days.
Bob has the choice between, establishing an encrypted channel to talk to Alice, not help her by providing social support on the issue over the telephone or violating his secrecy promise. If Alice wants to get a security clearance for her job she might be out of luck if the conversation with Bob is captured by government computers.
When talking about people who claim they have nothing to hide, I think that’s the best strategy. Showing them how they potentially hurt other people or at least break promises they make to other people.