Why Should You Care About Privacy If You’ve Got Nothing to Hide?

Because you’re relatively immoral

Photo by ev on Unsplash

You‘d never guess by her many achievements — a doctorate from Cambridge, a best-selling memoir — but for most of her life, Tara Westover’s environment has been anything but conducive to intellectual inquiry. While our parents were euphoric stumbling upon us perusing a textbook, Tara’s punished her.

Growing up in a survivalist household in a remote part of Idaho, her childhood was one of isolation and physical toil. Her father a radically religious conspiracy theorist, she was strictly forbidden to attend school or commune with other kids. Instead, her youth was spent on the family’s hazardous wrecking yard, sorting scrap. Whenever one of the many accidents occurred — be it a metal rod through her leg or a third-degree burn — it was her mother’s herbs that were the only remedy, for doctors were prohibited, too.

Above all else, though, it was the household's censorship on books — with the exception of the Bible, of course — that proved to be too much for young Tara to bear. Unable to restrain her curious mind, she rebelled against her domineering father and began to devour literature clandestinely. The wild worlds sprung to life by the pages captivated her beyond measure, for they were so different from her own restrictive existence. Perennially reading, she could often be found in the basement, hiding behind a couch. Or up at night, a book quite literally shoved in her face, for moonlight was her only source of illumination.

The risk paid off. At sixteen, without any formal schooling whatsoever, she passed a college entrance exam and fled the veritable prison that was her home.