The Sanctity of Privacy

Guest Post by Todd Hayen

I remember as a kid that privacy was pretty important. It really did have a sort of sanctity to it. There was a deep principle violated if someone invaded your private domain, and the abhorrence to this invasion and betrayal was often conveyed in movies, TV shows, and books.

This sensitivity seemed most prevalent when it came to sexual matters—such as affairs, body parts being exposed, rapes or other bodily transgressions. Most of this stuff was considered horrendous when violated due to shame. But even the shame was a privacy-based shame. Meaning a person was shamed if their privacy was invaded, simply because privacy was sacred, and people felt horribly betrayed if it was breached.

But it wasn’t only personal body or sexual privacy violations that were an issue. No one read other people’s diaries without permission, letters were private, and it just seemed that people were careful divulging personal information. It was just wrong to snoop, and spying was frowned upon, and noisy neighbors were always considered a nuisance and an infringement on private matters.

People were more mysterious in general. No one openly told anyone what they had for dinner unless specifically asked. No one went around telling people they were sad, or depressed, or anxious. No woman, unless one of ill repute, wore clothes that revealed much of anything. Female bodies were pretty sacred, or at least private. No one shared freely personal issues about health—certainly not mental health. These were the days when psychiatrist’s offices always had a separate exit from the entrance. No one dared let on that they were seeing a doctor for mental or emotional issues.

Maybe a lot of this focus on protecting one’s privacy was due to a fear that people would think less of them, find them morally reprehensible, or just in some way judge them in a negative manner if certain private things were revealed about them. I don’t doubt this.

Today, along with the loss of the sanctity of privacy, we have lost any sense of care of what others think of us—and outwardly dare them to think anything other than perfection. No one dresses up to go to dinner out of respect for themselves or fellow diners. No one cares what they wear in public. No one cares what they say in public. This disregard for what people think is a bit of an oxymoron considering people are generally major whiners, believing that anyone who looks sideways at them hates them. Go figure.

People back in my childhood days also believed very little about themselves was anyone else’s business. I grew up at a time that was a mere 20 years after the Nazi war. As little kids, incessantly playing war as a favored theme of outdoor play, it was common to blurt out iconic lines such as, “show me your papers!”—preferably in a German or Russian accent if we could pull it off. Private information was no one’s business, especially the government’s. And anyone who asked for private things to be revealed was either a Nazi or a commie.

So, what happened? Guess! Yep! The decades since my adolescence have been busy with brain training the population. Media, news, talk shows, cable series and now YouTube, TikTok, and all versions of social media, have taught us all that privacy, and our efforts to protect it, is for ninnies. “I have nothing to hide,” is the ubiquitous mantra we hear in response to our accusation that the government is pressing down on us with a police state agenda.

Nothing to hide, eh? People seem to think that the only thing anyone would need to hide is criminal activity. What they don’t take into consideration is that the rules regarding what constitutes “criminal” are ever changing. And these rules will continue to change until taking Fido for a walk in the evening will be considered a criminal offense. You don’t think it will get that bad? If you don’t think it will get that bad, you aren’t thinking. That is something else the agenda has taken away—our power to think.

I never in a million years would have thought that donating $100 to a peaceful protest in Canada’s capitol would be against the rules (I would say “law” but no one needs a broken law anymore to get arrested, ticketed, or to receive some other punitive recourse). Sure enough, it ended up that way. The government of Canada decided, well into the event, that the Trucker’s Convoy violated a whole whack of “rules” and therefore anyone who “aided and abetted” such criminality should be punished. My bank account became mysteriously frozen. There is more to this story than I am conveying here, suffice it to say, “I had nothing to hide.” The government thought otherwise.

This is the proverbial slippery slope, and I don’t care what anyone thinks about the unlikelihood of Canada or the US of A becoming a full-fledged totalitarian state—it is possible, and it is now in the early stages of such a state. One of the first signs is a wholesale disregard for privacy. My privacy was violated by my banking institution (BMO of Canada if anyone is counting) prying their nose into what I spend my money on. That is private.

Do you think anyone cares? Do you know what people said upon hearing my story? —“Well, you did a bad thing, me however, I have nothing to hide.” It is difficult for me to fathom that even if someone did not care to contribute to the Trucker’s Convoy that they would not understand that anyone who didshould have the right to do so. Isn’t that an important part of our constitutional rights? But only shrews empathized with my plight (many having had the same experience). Sheep did not care, because they have nothing to hide . . . or rather they think they have nothing to hide.

The only thing this ridiculous phrase will do for people who recite it is to allow the agenda to dig even deeper into their privacy. “Here you go officer, here’s my ID, here are my papers, here is my medical record, my phone records, my wife’s name, here it all is. I have nothing to hide.” Imagine the puzzled look on this guy’s face as the handcuffs are slapped on and he is escorted to his new place of residence for a few days, or for a few months, or for a few years.

Keep in mind, privacy and autonomy are inextricably linked. Only an autonomous person, a free person, can have autonomy. So one way a power can strip a person of his or her autonomy, which is the goal of any totalitarian regime, is to first strip them of their privacy.

Of course, this stripping of all privacy may not be completely accomplished any time soon (ha). At first, the people will have a very strong desire to conform and comply. And that will be nice for the agenda as well. People will eventually have no privacy, and that will be fine too, because most people will follow what the authority of the nation, or the world (can you spell WHO?) has to tell them. The tele in the bedroom—one that all bedrooms will require, with two-way communication capabilities—will announce, “have you had your vaccine today?” and most good citizens, who have nothing to hide, will say, “I sure have!”

Maybe that’s another thing people today will say, “that’s not going to happen.”

Give me one good reason why it won’t.

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