English transcript

People who say they don't care about privacy because they've got nothing to hide

haven't really thought too deeply about the issues

because what they're really saying is that I don't care about this right.

When you say I don't care about the right to privacy because I have nothing to hide,

that's no different than saying I don't care about freedom of speech because I have nothing to say

or freedom of the press because I have nothing to write.

There's a seriously concerning trend in many liberal and advanced democracies

where we see a growing appetite in government to narrow the limits of our rights.

A draft speech that was quoted recently by David Cameron after the election

implied that simply because you're following the law,

simply because you haven't done anything wrong,

doesn't mean you'll be exempt from governmental interference in your private life.

And this is an extraordinary departure from the traditional operation of liberal societies.

The whole point of the law is that's the standard of behavior that you're held to.

To go beyond that and to say that the government's going to take a role

not only in saying what is and is not lawful,

but to actually say what is and is not proper behavior, reasonable thinking,

and extreme idea empowers the government in a way that I think without precedent

in the kind of world that we grew up in,

we need to ask serious questions about do we want to leave our children

a less free world than the one that we ourselves inherited.