Muriel Gray did a lovely job in Saturday's Guradian of debunking of the idiotic soundbite that people who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear. She starts with two stories of innocent people who had escaped abusive families and found new lives under new identities.
"The reason for recalling these cases is that in the continuing debate over the government's baffling adherence to its insidious identity card scheme, its defence boils down to one cliche: if you're innocent you have nothing to hide. This is not simply an outrageously stupid statement, but also plain wrong...
the enigmatic stranger is a keystone of the British notion of freedom. The romantic ideal that anyone can be who they wish to be is so stitched into our mythology and literature... that its loss would be a tragedy.
The "innocent have nothing to hide" cliche implies that it is only the guilty who wish to deceive, to be deeply secretive, when in fact the innocent also have plenty of valid reasons to wish to do so...
The innocent have much to hide. It's called a private life."
Read the whole article. It's excellent.
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