A similar one is If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. The problem with statements like this is that it’s not true at so many levels.

Firstly, there are matters that should be private. Women going to abortion clinics whether or not they’re actually getting abortions there should be given their privacy. The police should not know what kind of porn I look at. LGBT+ folk are not out to everyone. And law enforcement is quicker to escalate to force and brutality when they don’t agree with your life choices.

Secondly, what is legal or socially acceptable today may become illegal or socially unacceptable tomorrow, and applied retroactively. I anticipate all of my political dialog on social media will be used against me when the DoJ starts seeking Antifa conspirators in earnest. MAGA already believes that association with the Democratic party should be criminal, as should having liberal or far-left opinions. Eventually, the regime might outlaw all non-MAGA thoughts.

Then there’s the matter that information about you may not be illegal, but could be socially damning, or a practical liability. Insurers also seek out your data, and will raise your rates if they disagree with your lifestyle. Since they can’t be trusted with your race and political affiliation, they certainly should not be trusted with your grocery shopping habits.

Surveillance systems lower the bar for suspicion. If ALPRs see that you follow a specific route to work and suddenly you change your route, that can be grounds for suspicion where before it wasn’t.

Police and other organizations with access to surveillance data are lousy with bad actors who will use these resources to stalk you, to harass you and possibly to ruin your life or kill you. If you get on a government list, such as a terror watch list, or a list of identified protestors and activists, then entire institutions can become bad actors that regard you as a political enemy and will stalk and kill you. US history teems with examples of dead revolutionaries and civil rights activists before the age of hypersurveillance.

Law enforcement is notorious for getting details wrong, for doing SWAT raids on the wrong houses, for drawing guns on drivers because the wrong car was reported as stolen. (I’m not sure why the suspect of a property crime is presumed violent, but whatever.) ALPRs also misread license plates, which puts more innocent people at gunpoint.

If you’re black or brown (or Muslim or part of any other marginalized group) then surveillance data can be just another excuse for law enforcement to pull you over and claim probable cause to force a search. And, as the case of Philando Castile demonstrates, eventually gun you down where you stand, because you weren’t perfectly compliant.