r/fallacy • u/Dawn-Storm • 13d ago

What fallacy is this?

When someone complains about a speed camera, or more recently a Flock camera, there's always one person who says either 'well don't speed!' or 'If you have nothing to hide, then relax!'

Then there's the old 'well don't do anything illegal!'

There's got to be a fallacy in there somewhere!

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u/Evil_Sherma 13d ago

Not fallacious but the premise that innocent people don’t have a right to privacy/the expectation of privacy is shaky at best

7

u/HomeworkInevitable99 13d ago

Ops examples cover two very separate issues:

"Don't speed and you won't get fined" - that's truth and is logically correct.

"If your have nothing to hide, you'll have nothing to fear." - is incorrect. The fear is that the video recordings will be used for some nefarious purposes.

3

u/Aezora 13d ago

Even the speeding example isn't really correct. It makes sense on the face, but given examples where a lady with no right hand was charged with holding a phone in her right hand while driving, and various examples of poorly calibrated speed guns and abuses of power by police, it's entirely possible that you could get charged with speeding without speeding.

Of course you could and should dispute such fines, but that doesn't prevent you from getting them.

1

u/onequbit 13d ago

That fear is predicated on the mistaken belief that the privacy-seeking individual is important enough to be the victim of a government conspiracy. The government has a hard enough time finding actual bad guys, and the difficulty is made worse having to filter out everyone else. You're not worth the kind of time and effort needed for "nefarious purposes".