What I do not understand however is that why people bother with it so much, are you hiding something?
Just because you have nothing to hide, doesn't mean you have anything you want to share. You don't need to be hiding something incriminating to want privacy; privacy is a fundamental human right. The loss of privacy leads to the loss of freedom. With zero privacy, would you behave the same way in public as you do around friends? What about when in your own house, alone? Would you feel comfortable publicly declaring every thought you think, regardless of how ashamed it makes you feel? Of course not. With zero privacy, you would quickly be reduced to the lowest common denominator, too afraid to say anything slightly out of the ordinary and too afraid to be your true self.
Everyone values privacy. Otherwise why do you have curtains on your windows? Why do you wear clothes? Why do you post on this forum from a pseudonym, rather than from your real name with your address in your profile?
I don't need to spend a lot of time dismantling the "nothing to hide" argument,
because it is already widely discredited. I will share one of my favorite quotes on the topic though:
The old cliché is often mocked though basically true: there’s no reason to worry about surveillance if you have nothing to hide. That mindset creates the incentive to be as compliant and inconspicuous as possible: those who think that way decide it’s in their best interests to provide authorities with as little reason as possible to care about them. That’s accomplished by never stepping out of line. Those willing to live their lives that way will be indifferent to the loss of privacy because they feel that they lose nothing from it. Above all else, that’s what a Surveillance State does: it breeds fear of doing anything out of the ordinary by creating a class of meek citizens who know they are being constantly watched.