as I hope I've been amble to demonstrate, is "everything." Here follows some clever answers to the aformentioned question: "If I'm not doing anything wrong, then you have no cause to watch me." "Because the government gets to define what is unacceptable behaviour, and not you or anyone else." "Because you might do something mistakenly with my information." My problem with quips like these answers - as right as they are - is that they accept the premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong. It's not. Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect. Cardinal Richelieu understood the value of surveillance when he famously said, "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." Watch someone long enough, and you'll find something to arrest - or just blackmail with. Privacy is important because without it, surveillance information will be abused: to peep, to sell to marketers and to spy on political enemies - whoever they happen to be at the time. Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance. We do nothing wrong when we make love or go to the bathroom. We are not deliberately hiding anything when we seek out private places for reflection or conversation. We keep private journals, sing in the privacy of the shower, and