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Epitaph for Freedom: "If it's for the security of the country, it's OK with me."
From a Boston Globe story about reaction to continuing revelations about the extent and nature of the NSA wiretapping program:
Added William MacKenzie, a Verizon customer from Taunton: ''I have nothing to hide, so I don't have a problem with it. If it's for the security of the country, it's OK with me."
Those interviewed yesterday overwhelmingly said the possibility of phone companies handing over records to the government didn't alarm them and wouldn't make them walk away from any of the companies. Telecommunications giants Verizon Communications, AT&T Corp., and BellSouth Corp., according to a story first published in USA Today, agreed to share customer information with the NSA. One company, Qwest Corp., however, refused to cooperate.
More here.
I'm reminded in such moments of the old Ben Franklin quote about trading liberty for "temporary safety" and more about how something Fox News legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano told Reason a couple of years back:
No one--no lawyer, judge, or historian--can point to a single incident in American history where national security was impaired because someone insisted on their right to free speech or their right to privacy or their right to due process.
Whole interview here.
Flashback time: Guarding the Home Front: Will civil liberties be a casualty in the War on Terrorism?, a symposium from the December 2001 ish of Reason.
What price Safety?: Security and freedom in an age of fear, a special section from the October 2002 ish of Reason.
Dave W.|5.12.06 @ 8:38AM|#
No one--no lawyer, judge, or historian--can point to a
single incident in American history where national security was
impaired because someone insisted on . . . their right to privacy
or their right to due process.
Moussaoui and 9/11?
|5.12.06 @ 8:41AM|#
Perhaps if William MacKenzie, a Verizon customer from Taunton, removed the turd residing in his skull and replaced it with a working brain, he might find a reason or two for concern. One can only suppose he'd have no objection to being cavity-searched on a daily basis, since he has nothing to hide.
|5.12.06 @ 8:44AM|#
Dave W.
I can't find a good definition of "national security", so I'm going
to go with Wikipedia's
National security refers to the public policy of maintaining the integrity and survival of the nation-state through the use of economic, military and political power and the exercise of diplomacy, in times of peace and war.
So, using that definition, how was 9/11 an impairment of national security?
Dave W.|5.12.06 @ 8:47AM|#
Because if the plane they shot down had gone on to hit the White House Cheney would have been killed and we would have been without a President.
|5.12.06 @ 9:06AM|#
"'Those interviewed yesterday overwhelmingly said the possibility of phone companies handing over records to the government didn't alarm them and wouldn't make them walk away from any of the companies.[emphasis mine] Hhmmn? Could this be because, generally, in the US domestic phone service (land line) is a city by city monopoly. Yes, VOIP service companies are now offering some competition, but they require a high-speed internet connection, and those are also still (for the most part) offered by only the self-same telco or the local cable TV monopoly.
On the bright side, I personally know more and more people who are choosing to forgo a land line at home, as their voice communication needs are met by every individual in a family (traditional or not) having a cell phone. Oh well, progress marches slowly onward.
|5.12.06 @ 9:07AM|#
Anybody knows how safe VoIP is from governmental privacy informations? I've been considering switching entirely to Skype as my landline, and this NSA debacle has just added another argument in favor of that decision.
|5.12.06 @ 9:08AM|#
The result of freedom is a trust in government.
What the hell do some old dead guys know anyway? I mean, things are
so different now. There's no way they could have ever conceived of
such a viscious enemy and I'm sure Ben and Tom would approve as
there is nothing temporary about the threat facing us and our way
of life. ;)
Dave W.|5.12.06 @ 9:14AM|#
a joke! a joke!
Chances are that plane wasn't shot down. I mean they played the
tape in open court didn't they?
|5.12.06 @ 9:16AM|#
a. is there a "right to privacy" that I don't know about?
b. comparing daily cavity searches to having your incoming and
outgoing phone records stored in a massive database is just
slightly, ever so slighty - moronic. Not exactly the same degree of
personal impact...
c. doesn't the government already get your phone records whenever
they want, just by asking the phone companies? I mean, they do it
on Law & Order and CSI every week.
|5.12.06 @ 9:17AM|#
Dave, are you trying to say that if it weren't for Moussaoui's due process and other rights, 9-11 would not have happened?
|5.12.06 @ 9:23AM|#
Probably what bugs me the most about this whole debacle is that the people who care about lost liberty, and those in the best position to try to change it, are more interested in carping and making snide remarks to one another than actually going out and trying to change these public perceptions. But then, it's always been that way so who cares. It seems these days that libertarianism is more a lifestyle choice than a view on how society and politics should work.
|5.12.06 @ 9:25AM|#
is there a "right to privacy" that I don't know
about?
I used to think so, because I was always taught how important it
was to have a secret ballot during elections. (If that's not
privacy, what is?)
But at last week's primary, all of the new-fangled electronic
voting booths were standing out in the open, no curtains or
anything. Plus, since they're designed to be read by people with
poor vision, everyone's choices are blasted in 36pt font.
"Are you sure you want to vote NO on ISSUE #2 SCHOOL LEVY?"
|5.12.06 @ 9:27AM|#
rafuzo:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation doesn't fund itself, you know.
Nor does the Institute for Justice, CATO, the LP (loveable
wackos!), or the Reason Foundation.
|5.12.06 @ 9:33AM|#
Could it be perhaps that people don't believe that there wasn't
ever any real pivacy with regard to the phone numbers of the people
they called? Or perhaps they think this is really a minor
infringement of thier privacy in any case and feel the possible
benefits outweigh the costs.
If poeple have any real beef it's with the phone companies they do
buisness with. They were, after all, not compelled to cooperate.
QWest didn't.
Though now I'm sure that the secerecy of this program has been
compromised, it's practically useless given that all one has to do
at this point is switch thier provider to QWest where it's
avaiable.
And by the way, I figured everyone knew at this point that Franklin
is not responcible for that quote which poeple bandy about
endlessly.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin
Dave W.|5.12.06 @ 9:35AM|#
Possibly, Jennifer.
I can imagine a country that would have tortured Moussaoui as a
matter of course, would have searched his laptop without needing to
beg Washington for a warrant and would have searched the address of
everybody mentioned in his laptop without a warrant.
That country might have prevented 9-11.
MY TAKE
While that country might have prevented 9-11, that country would
probably have an awful lot of innocent ppl die in police custody.
The trade-off between powerful police and freedom is not a zero sum
game, but it still exists as a real tradeoff.
You might remember me bitching about 6 months ago because they
occasionally do warrantless door to door "consensual" searches here
in Canada. The catch is that if you don't consent, then they use
that non-consent to get a warrant. Now I don't like this police
practice at all, I even tried unsuccessfully to get Mr. Oliver to
BrickBat it.
However, I can't deny that this practice may stop some crimes at
the margin. In one of these searches they did find a child murderer
that they probably would not otherwise have found. The thing about
me is that I am so crazy that I am willing to let a few child
murders stay free if millions of people can feel secure in their
homes. That is the problem with being crazy -- you begin to believe
crazy things.
One last wrinkle: I am not sure whether any government people, some
air defense people in particular, had foreknowledge of 9/11. Y'aal
think they didn't. I think maybe they did. If they did, that raises
another possibility which is that Moussaoui would not have been
tortured and searched even if the police had instant and
unquestionable power to do so. In that kind of a repressive and
corrupt (LIHOP) regime, the government is much freer to pick and
choose which atrocities to prevent and which to allow to go
forward.
|5.12.06 @ 9:40AM|#
Though it makes me uncomfortable, I'm going to agree with the
gist of Dave W's first comment. Not the part about shooting down
the plane, but the part suggesting that libertarians make this case
too easily.
We may have greater risk tolerance and the cost to liberty may be
too high, but it is too strong a statement to say that no risks can
be mitigated by restricting liberty. I don't want to pay the price
in most cases, but this line of argument is just not credible to
me.
Dave W.|5.12.06 @ 9:41AM|#
PS to previous:
In the search that affected my neighborhood, the search did not
lead to the capture, rather it was a more standard tip by a
neighbor of the dead woman (who was not in the search zone).
The police have been remarkably silent since they got the guy they
were looking so hard for. You almost begin to think that they think
this particular guy killed his commonlaw wife in selfdefense.
Thanks for the search, guys!
Timothy|5.12.06 @ 9:50AM|#
My Take: Bad things are going to happen sometimes, awful things sometimes. At the margin some of them might be preventable with enough restriction on liberty, but is it worth being protected to live in that kind of world? I say no.
|5.12.06 @ 9:55AM|#
semm:
From your link - "With the information thus far available the issue
of authorship of the statement is not yet definitely resolved, but
the evidence indicates it was very likely Franklin, who in the Poor
Richard's Almanack of 1738 is known to have written a similar
proverb: "Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to
purchase power.""
B.D.|5.12.06 @ 9:59AM|#
Jozef,
VoIP service is currently safe from government wiretapping. In
fact, one of the things that the government has complained about is
that they don't have a way to monitor those services.
However VoIP is hardly safe from interception. There are
emerging technologies for encrypting VoIP calls. The beauty of
that, of course, is that is something that is currently A)out of
government control, B)perfectly legal, and C)cannot be done with
landlines. If memory serves, and when it does it's usually burnt to
a crisp, but I believe that Skype claims some sort of encryption
capability, but that they don't share the code, so it's hard to
determine how secure it is.
|5.12.06 @ 10:00AM|#
"You hear about constitutional rights, free speech, and the free
press. Every time I hear these words I say to myself. 'That man is
a Red, that man is a Communist!' You never hear a real American
talk like that."
- Mayor Frank Hague, Jersey City, New Jersey, 1938
Get used to it. Happy times are here again.
Dave W.|5.12.06 @ 10:01AM|#
Two more points:
1. Overbearing police tactics at Waco lead directly to the Oklahoma
City bombing. In that one, police misconduct helped bring about 168
(maybe 169 -- there was an extra leg) deaths, including 19
children. When you acknowledge this dynamic, you might consider
that an overpowerful police may merely create a new terrorist for
every one it decommissions.
2. Spending issues. when you spend money on powerful police and
pervasive surveillance, then you end up not spending money on other
things, like busses to get poor black people out of a disaster area
before they drown, or a decent investigation on why diabetes has
taken off. If saving lives is the utilitarian value, the
torture/spy money would probably be better spent elsewhere, if at
all.
|5.12.06 @ 10:08AM|#
B.D.,
VoIP packets are just ordinary UDP/IP packets, the same as used
for, say, streaming video. There's nothing to stop them from being
encrypted using an ordinary public/private key algorithm.
|5.12.06 @ 10:11AM|#
You are correct, Dave, but the kiss of death for a career politician is to be seen as doing nothing. Conversely, the rubes all vote for the dude who says he'll Do Whatever It Takes to keep us safe from terrists and such.
Jeff P|5.12.06 @ 10:13AM|#
Of course it would be impossible, especially in such an
politically bland city as Boston, for a news story to be tooled in
such a way that it evokes the most shocked and impassioned reaction
from readers...
Within 24 hours the primary crux of this story (at least from my
cursory Google searches) has shifted from the numbers list to the
fact that "most" people are cool with it. The statements from the
telecom lawyers have gone under-reported, as has the number of
angry emails flooding their customer service centers. Even Wall
Street's reaction has been muted.
Peoples reaction to news is now news.
|5.12.06 @ 10:13AM|#
I can't help but be disturbed by the idea that people are okay with handing over their personal records solely because they have "nothing to hide." As my co-worker just stated "We live in a remarkably stupid time."
|5.12.06 @ 10:14AM|#
I've seen the light on this issue and now fully support the
Administration gathering a database of everyone's phone calls. I'm
absolutely positive nobody in the Administration would sift through
their political enemies' records for things like:
1. Calls to gay phone sex lines.
2. Calls to abortion providers.
3. Calls to prostitutes -- "Hey Porter, what's that number
again?"
4. Calls to ex-girlfriends that your wife doesn't know about.
I mean, only terrorists with something to hide need to be worried
about all this data being in government hands.
|5.12.06 @ 10:16AM|#
"If it's for the security of the country, it's OK with
me."
Doing nothing but drinking 1990 Nikolaihof Vinothek and laying in
my hammock in the sun all day while being waited on by various
models...is "for the security of the country".
Hey, look, if the NSA doesn't have to explain why, then
neither do I...
|5.12.06 @ 10:17AM|#
a. is there a "right to privacy" that I don't know
about?
of course there is not. you only have the rights that the
government, in all of its great benevolence, has deemed you fit to
receive.
give me a break. the whole, "it doesn't say in the constitution
that you have a right to X, so you obviously don't have that right"
argument is a tired one.
screw the penumbras and emanations, i point to the 9th
amendment.
B.D.|5.12.06 @ 10:18AM|#
the other Mark, thank you for the clarification.
Does this mean that political enemies of the administration can now
pursue, via a Freedom of Information Act inquiry, the phone records
of say, the White House to Jack Abramoff and vice versa? How about
Karl Rove's records to reporters or New Hampshire? Or Porter Goss'
records to the Watergate Hotel? Or the Watergate Hotel to hookers
in Virginia?
|5.12.06 @ 10:22AM|#
downstater - if you change the definition of words to suit your mood, the words stop meaning anything...
|5.12.06 @ 10:22AM|#
I see poll results like these as another illumination of the
rampaging success that is our public education system.
Logical analysis? Critical, independent thought? Not in our
schools, baby- those things lead to questions we don't want to
answer, and discipline problems that we just don't want to
face.
|5.12.06 @ 10:23AM|#
My solution is pretty simple: I'm going to find a new cell phone
company and then I'm going to dump Verizon. And I'll default on the
contract termination fee. Yes, yes, I know, contracts are
sacrosanct in libertarian philosophy, but I just don't give a fuck
in this case. The people who collaborate with oppressive regimes
are the first ones against the wall after the revolution. The way I
see it, not paying a bill is letting the fuckers off easy.
You don't want to know what I was originally planning to do to
Verizon's executives. Suffice it to say that I had some clever
ideas for redecorating the NSA headquarters.
|5.12.06 @ 10:23AM|#
B.D.,
Haven't you learned anything? The only one who gets to decide which
laws you can and cannot break is the President. The almighty,
all-powerful, omnipotent Commander In Chief. If he wants to break 1
or 2 (or 750) laws, all he's gotta do is sign a form declaring that
he is allowed to break said laws. But if someone ELSE wants to
break a law, well, you'd better be on Leader's good side, boy! You
need His permission if you wanna shit on the constitution!
Meanwhile, us regular joe's can't say the words "plane" and "bomb"
in the same telephone conversation without being placed on a
terrorist watchlist.
Ah, yes, it all makes perfect sense.
|5.12.06 @ 10:27AM|#
Does anyone know what cell phone companies aren't cooperating, besides Qwest? I just got a new plan with Sprint and I'm pretty pissed that they appear to be in on this.
Timothy|5.12.06 @ 10:28AM|#
I put up a very angry post on my blog last night, we'll see if it's gotten me on the no-fly list overnight.
|5.12.06 @ 10:32AM|#
I can imagine a country that would have tortured Moussaoui
as a matter of course, would have searched his laptop without
needing to beg Washington for a warrant and would have searched the
address of everybody mentioned in his laptop without a warrant.
That country might have prevented 9-11.
Problem is, Dave W, that you can't just do that to Moussaoui; you
have to do that to every "dangerous" suspect. You're talking about
hundreds of suspects being tortured, thousands of warrantless
searches, etc, all to prevent a tiny pin-prick assault on our
"national security". Not to minimize 9/11, but 3,000 people dying
in terrorist attacks -- even if it happened once a decade or so --
would be a small price to pay for freedom's security.
In short, I would rather die than live in that country.
|5.12.06 @ 10:36AM|#
downstater - if you change the definition of words to suit
your mood, the words stop meaning anything...
how flippant and cryptic. care to elaborate?
|5.12.06 @ 11:02AM|#
I don't think thoreau is thoreau today.
The thoreau we all know seldom says fuck, let alone twice in one
post.
Nor does he implicitly suggest "past" plans of violence, that I
know of.
Having said that, I can't say I really object to anything he said,
whether or not he's the real thoreau.
|5.12.06 @ 11:02AM|#
Problem is, Dave W, that you can't just do that to
Moussaoui; you have to do that to every "dangerous"
suspect.
and then some...Once the apparatus for a surveillance society is
put in place, how could it not be used continuously? I mean, today
it's al Qaeda, but when nothing happens there, won't the tool just
be re-focussed on some other public enemy?...
The Commerce Clause comes to mind as a broad example.
|5.12.06 @ 11:12AM|#
"but it is too strong a statement to say that no risks can be
mitigated by restricting liberty"
But that is EXACTLY the point. Since risk is entirely subjective
and information dependent (you do know that "perfect information"
is impossible even in retrospect, right?), what risks people are
willing to mitigate and at what cost is entirely subjective.
Here's one: I'm willing to pay the price of eliminating the second
amendment to mitigate the risk of gang violence in my neighborhood.
Similarly, I'm willing to incarcerate any drug dealer because a.
they've already shown a propensity to violate the law; b. when in
the throes of addiction, they'll do anything - they're "maniacs"
who don't consider consequences; and c. according to secret
government intelligence that we can't know about, their revenues go
to support terrorists.
You up with that?
|5.12.06 @ 11:53AM|#
thoreau,
Yes, yes, I know, contracts are sacrosanct in libertarian
philosophy, but I just don't give a fuck in this case.
Verizon already violated the contract by giving your personal
information over to a third party.
|5.12.06 @ 11:54AM|#
quasibill:
We've had this discussion before. You feel that it is possible to
draw a bright line that says The Government Shall Not Be Used for
Risk Mitigation.
My counter argument is that if you actually hold yourself to that
standard, you can enforce no laws. You can't enforce laws because
you know for a fact that your jury system is imperfect. To have a
justice system at all, you are accepting a non zero amount of error
in the system. You are doing so because the risk mitigation of
having the justice system outweighs the risk of imprisoning the
wrong people.
Further, whole categories of crimes can't even be crimes if you
eliminate risk analysis as justification. Endangerment, for
instance. I can draw and shoot right next to your head if I want.
If I don't mess up, I didn't do anything wrong.
We can argue about what the limits of risk analysis are, but your
principled stand against risk analysis seems like hot air unless
you want to dismantle all enforcement of rules.
|5.12.06 @ 12:12PM|#
Jason,
I understand your point, but as far as risk assessment goes, the
opposite has been taking place for the last few decades. As long as
there is a 0.000001% risk in doing something, it's fair game to
enact a law calling for the criminal sanction. The non-zero factor
of error is more and more applying to the citizens rather than the
justice system. I'll gladly give the justice system room for error,
but they're taking away my room for error and don't appear to be
making any change for the better in their own error rate.
Where's the economic argument? The NSA spent all this time and
money, pissed thousands of customers off, and produced absolutely
nothing. The best they can do is a theoretical peace of mind:
they're "giving" it to people who don't have it and "stealing" it
from people who thought they already had it. Government can't help
itself but redistribute peace of mind, just like welfare.
|5.12.06 @ 12:35PM|#
Russ:
I agree 100%. I only object to the admonishment from pure principle
that we can't allow government to engage in risk mitigation.
We can and do allow it. The question is, as you suggest, how much
value we place on the various variables in the risk model.
|5.12.06 @ 1:06PM|#
downstater - no, not really. You should be able to figure it out yourself. Here's a hint - all my words mean what everyone understands them to mean, not some phony made-up definition...
|5.12.06 @ 1:10PM|#
Jason,
All I'm saying is in the tug-of-war between security and liberty,
security's got a huge advantage and kicking the puritans off the
liberty side isn't going to help.
|5.12.06 @ 1:20PM|#
Qwest emailed me back and said that they don't have service in
my area.
I have a hunch that there's some fine print in my contract with
Verizon, and they'll use that to argue that I still owe them money.
Screw that. Phone like a hole, black as their soul, I'd rather die,
than pay them their toll.
Anybody know if TMobile handed over data? All the reports that I've
read so far only pertain to landlines. TMobile doesn't do
landlines. If they haven't handed over any data then they have a
new customer.
|5.12.06 @ 1:23PM|#
"My counter argument is that if you actually hold yourself to
that standard, you can enforce no laws."
As always, its a nice strawman for you to throw out there, but that
doesn't make it true. Of course you can enforce laws, and you can
even make mistakes in doing it, as long as sufficient procedures
are in place and there is true accountability. To get true
accountability, you must allow for actual consent, not fictitious
consent.
As such, I can voluntarily choose to surrender some of my liberties
in order to gain the benefits that flow therefrom (such as ability
to engage in commercial transactions with others, and having my
claims respected under that law). But I must be free to choose from
competing systems in order for it to be my voluntary choice what
liberties and rights and money I'm willing to pay to gain those
benefits and avoid certain risks.
In a free market, I'd probably have no problem with allowing my
legal insurance company have access to my phone records. In a
state, where there is no accountability, especially when there is
such a concept as "national security secrecy", I have big problems
with the legal system having unfettered access to the details of my
life.
"Further, whole categories of crimes can't even be crimes if you
eliminate risk analysis as justification. Endangerment, for
instance. I can draw and shoot right next to your head if I
want."
Well, you can always argue over how much "endangerment" will be
criminalized, but I think it would always be a crime to
intentionally put someone in reasonable fear for their physical
safety. Going much further than that, though, allows for arguments
that can be used to outlaw guns and drugs. Risks that are imminent
allow for self-defense. Risks beyond that are the responsibility of
the individual to prepare for in the way that they determine best
meets their own needs and desires.
|5.12.06 @ 1:24PM|#
As to risk and liberty, at the margins there will always be
tradeoffs. But even with tradeoffs it need not be zero sum.
A society in which peaceful immigrants need not fear the cops is
one in which terrorists will have a harder time hiding amidst
people of the same ethnic and religious background.
A society in which you have the right to defend yourself, and carry
the means of self defense on your person, is one in which hijackers
will have a harder time.
A society that doesn't encourage violent and lucrative black
markets need not fear that Afghan opium cartels will have the cash
to fund terrorists.
A society in which the cops have to have a good reason to conduct a
search is a society that will allocate scarce law enforcement
resources more effectively.
If we only look at a marginal case then it's easy to conclude that
liberty comes at the cost of safety. But if we look at the big
picture, then it becomes clear that there are lots of ways to gain
liberty and security at the same time. There will always be
marginal costs, even with creative win-win solutions, but trading
away liberty for temporary security may result in less security in
the long term.
|5.12.06 @ 1:49PM|#
Russ:
"All I'm saying is in the tug-of-war between security and liberty,
security's got a huge advantage and kicking the puritans off the
liberty side isn't going to help."
Not looking to kick anyone off the liberty side, I'm looking to
make our case more publicly credible. The argument that no risk
analysis is to be permitted is not credible.
|5.12.06 @ 2:18PM|#
"Of course you can enforce laws, and you can even make mistakes
in doing it, as long as sufficient procedures are in place and
there is true accountability. To get true accountability, you must
allow for actual consent, not fictitious consent.
...
Risks that are imminent allow for self-defense. Risks beyond that
are the responsibility of the individual to prepare for in the way
that they determine best meets their own needs and desires."
This is a better argument from my POV, but it hinges on what one
means by 'imminent'and what one understands real consent to consist
of.
The weakness of the argument, to me, is that individuals don't get
to consent or not to the application of the justice system. The
assumption of consent comes through glorious democracy.
What I'm saying is not that I disagree with you that this think
stinks - I don't. I'm saying that the focus of the argument has to
be on consequences of these particular actions and how these
particular actions violate the common understanding of what our
rights are. I don't think a principled argument about government
not being able to engage in risk mitigation will hold water. The
argument, even in qualified form, is countered in practice by 99%
of existing laws. Contract enforcement is risk analysis, it is not
mitigation of risk of imminent physical harm.
|5.12.06 @ 2:21PM|#
quasibill:
"But that is EXACTLY the point. Since risk is entirely subjective
and information dependent (you do know that "perfect information"
is impossible even in retrospect, right?), what risks people are
willing to mitigate and at what cost is entirely subjective."
This is the argument against risk analysis. It applies to all risk
analysis.
|5.12.06 @ 2:44PM|#
downstater - no, not really. You should be able to figure it
out yourself. Here's a hint - all my words mean what everyone
understands them to mean, not some phony made-up
definition...
no, i didn't think you would.
wow. what definition have i stated? what does my mood have to do
with anything?
for one who claims to value straight-talkin' you really shouldn't
take the scope of someone's point further than it was intended in
an effort to obscure and discredit it.
you must agree that just because a certain right is not mentioned
verbatim in the constitution does not mean that people don't have
that right. it seems to me the ninth amendment is pretty straight
forward about that. unless the constitution doesn't really mean
what it says either.
|5.12.06 @ 2:44PM|#
"I'm saying that the focus of the argument has to be on
consequences of these particular actions and how these particular
actions violate the common understanding of what our rights
are."
That's where my problem is - there is no such thing as "the common
understanding of what our rights are." Ask a leftist, and he'll
tell you that you have no property rights. Ask a rightist, and
he'll tell you that you have no privacy rights at all. And in
between, you have all kinds of people with inherently contradictory
positions. There's a reason the 9th amendment was included, and
used vague language. The Constitution was a noble experiment, but
it has shown that what was sought is not possible.
"I don't think a principled argument about government not being
able to engage in risk mitigation will hold water."
Then you've already lost the battle. Once you say it is legitimate,
every one will claim that their pet concern needs to be mitigated
at the public's expense. Which is what we have here, today. It's
what "we" want, and well, we got it.
"Contract enforcement is risk analysis"
No. Contract drafting is risk analysis. Enforcement is defense of
property (you gave property under certain conditions, so it you
have the right to enforce those conditions). But note the
well-established concept of "efficient breach" which allows for
willful breaches with no penalty beyond compensations, as well as
the well-established bias against specific performance, especially
in service contracts.
|5.12.06 @ 3:22PM|#
"This is the argument against risk analysis. It applies to all
risk analysis"
Nope. It is an argument against socializing risk mitigation. It
does not in any way argue that you cannot analyze risks. Nor does
it say that you can't perform such an analysis for someone else -
say, in an effort to sell them a risk mitigation product. What it
is an argument against is forcing someone else to pay for your
vision of the "public good".
|5.12.06 @ 3:32PM|#
"Nope. It is an argument against socializing risk mitigation. It
does not in any way argue that you cannot analyze risks."
Ugh. Around and around we go. The existence of government is
socialized risk mitigation.
|5.12.06 @ 3:58PM|#
quasi,
As I keep saying, you DON'T reject socialization in all its forms,
what you do is draw a line.
How are police paid? How are judges paid? As soon as you spend one
cent of public money on the enforcement of any law, you have
engaged in the socialization of risks.
|5.12.06 @ 5:55PM|#
One thing to think about is the extremely low probability that any good will ever come of this call record database. Just think about this pile of numbers, there is nothing smart to do with it. So someone is bound to find something stupid to do with it first. Just send those smart NSA folks out to find jobs at brokerages if we can't find anything better to do with them than this.
|5.12.06 @ 6:03PM|#
"As I keep saying, you DON'T reject socialization in all its
forms, what you do is draw a line."
I DO, otherwise, all you are left with is "my priority for robbing
you is more important than your priority for robbing me!" There is
no place that a) you can philosophically consistently draw the
line, and b) make sure that the line stays where you draw it, once
you concede that the line is somewhere west of "never".
"How are police paid? How are judges paid?"
Just because the state is involved in those areas now, doesn't mean
it has to be. You do know that we didn't have police when the
Constitution was written, right?
|5.13.06 @ 4:42PM|#
"You do know that we didn't have police when the Constitution
was written, right?"
And so, your argument has become "The NSA tapping our phone lines
is bad for the same reason a publicly funded justice and law
enforcement system is bad."
That is not a compelling argument to anyone who isn't an anarchist
already. The implication is that if you accept publicly funded
police and judges, you don't have a good reason to be upset. That
is why I don't like this line of argumentation.
|5.13.06 @ 5:14PM|#
thoreau:
Your last post is the greatest thing I ever remember teading on the
comments of this board. Thank you.
|5.13.06 @ 5:16PM|#
teading, of course, should be reading. Even though I hate people
who immediately correct their own posts.
I hate myself. Still, a wonderful post you made, thoreau.
|5.14.06 @ 12:26AM|#
Jason-
In theory you are of course correct: There can always be trade-offs
at the margin, and we have to accept that a privacy protection
could always hamper a crucial investigation and cost lives.
However, as I think more about it, that theoretical possibility is
only realized if additional powers would be exercised
intelligently. If, instead, additional powers result in less
discriminate tactics and more noise to overwhelm the signal, then
granting the government more power may actually cost lives.
Now, let's ask ourselves a question: Is our ruling junta competent
enough to amplify signal with its new powers? Or will the thugs
instead just pick up more noise?
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