Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Democracy has never been a right, it's always been a privilege that people demanded, and guess what, when people stop demanding it, power will naturally collude.
If the surveillance state existed before the democracy and continued on without the consent of the governed, then it wasn't a democracy to begin with. If the citizens allowed a surveillance state to take root or their vigilance slipped, then continued vigilance would keep the surveillance state in check. However, I'm making the assumption here that for the surveillance state to take enough power to make it unstoppable (without violent revolution), it would have to grow to the point where its secrecy is no longer maintainable, and the aforementioned vigilance would take over and bring in the rains.
Now that I've written that, it all seems like semantics...
In other words, a "democratic surveillance state" isn't an oxymoron. Nor it it necessarily a bad thing. However, it differs sharply from an authoritarian surveillance state, which is invariably horrible.
Writing for the Washington Post, Mike Konczal elaborates on this distinction in the best surveillance-related piece I've read post-PRISM.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/08/i...
"As Aaron Bady has argued in MIT’s Technology Review, the language and concepts for privacy evolved in a world where “walls” were still the dominant metaphor. Peeking through a wall was sufficient to prove you violated someone’s privacy. But technology has opened up a brand new world where walls no longer exist, or things exist in so many places that the idea of walls makes no sense. Without them we need new concepts.
As is often the case, the battle between authoritarianism and democracy can do a lot of the mental work. One of the great things about democracy is its ability to check private and government power, as well as creating institutional structure promoting accountability and transparency. And I fear it is the only way out of the situation our country faces."
The point is that the definition of surveillance itself is changing along with the concept of privacy, leading to shifts in previously-stable balances of power. To a very large extent, these changes - which have both positive and negative aspects - are byproducts of a larger technological shift which has already brought far to many advantages to reverse.
In other words, we need to develop new social norms and structures to ensure the safety of what could otherwise be very dangerous system. We don't have to do this from scratch, but the familiar frames of reference do need updating. And that starts with recognizing that "surveillance" by itself, is neither good nor bad (depending on who is watching who, under what circumstances, and why), but that it can easily be either depending on the context.
I don't agree, though; I think secret surveillance is in and of itself anti-democratic. However, OP is correct too, in the sense that once it is revealed that secret, illegal surveillance is going on, if the subjects of a functioning democracy don't care or take any action, that is probably even more corrosive to a democratic state (since presumably there will eventually always be people like Norden^W Snowden, and nothing stays secret forever).
You can't think freely when you are aware that an invisible entity is constantly watching every phone call you make and every web page you surf to. Knowing you're under surveillance changes your behavior.
It's a recipe for insanity, not democracy.
"Inverted totalitarianism is all politics all of the time but a politics largely untempered by the political. Party squabbles are occasionally on public display, and there is a frantic and continuous politics among factions of the party, interest groups, competing corporate powers, and rival media concerns. And there is, of course, the culminating moment of national elections when the attention of the nation is required to make a choice of personalities rather than a choice between alternatives. What is absent is the political, the commitment to finding where the common good lies amidst the welter of well-financed, highly organized, single-minded interests rabidly seeking governmental favors and overwhelming the practices of representative government and public administration by a sea of cash."
What we need is this:
The Theory of Communicative Action has three interrelated concerns: (1) to develop a concept of rationality that is no longer tied to, and limited by, the subjectivistic and individualistic premises of modern philosophy and social theory; (2) to construct a two-level concept of society that integrates the lifeworld and systems paradigms; and, finally, (3) to sketch out, against this background, a critical theory of modernity which analyzes and accounts for its pathologies in a way that suggests a redirection rather than an abandonment of the project of enlightenment.
Social interaction only works because we have the ability to keep secrets. We hide our true feelings and intents to enable the great machine to work. If those views became known to all, you'd be in trouble. Worse still, what if you really knew every one else's views. Even worse than that, say a few people knew your real views, then used them to manipulate you.
Our ability to keep things private is vital.
I hope that some people think I'm talking about interpersonal relationships, and that other people think I'm talking about international diplomatic relations. If government expects to be able to keep secrets and privacy, it had better understand my need for it too. If it doesn't want its privacy abused, then it had better not abuse mine. We both need and value it.
"But Americans should not be fooled by political leaders putting forward a false choice. The issue is not whether the government should vigorously pursue terrorists. The question is whether the security goals can be achieved by less-intrusive or sweeping means, without trampling on democratic freedoms and basic rights. Far too little has been said on this question by the White House or Congress in their defense of the N.S.A.’s dragnet. "
No, NYT, the question is how which security goals can be achieved without trampling on democratic freedoms and basic rights.
There is no security goal that justifies destroying freedom, as freedom is the motivation for our security goals.
It's easy to say that security is completely unimportant when it's not your daughter being beaten and raped for being seen outside without a veil.
According to a poll cited in today's WSJ and LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-republicans-democ...), Democrats tend to support NSA surveillance, whereas Republicans tend to oppose it — a complete reversal of the situation under the Bush 43 administration. In other words, a majority of voters likes surveillance, as long as it is being conducted by their preferred political party.
Assuming we are talking about supporting, rather than liking, then it is quite rational to support surveillance when done by your own party. I choose politicians to support based on my belief that they largely share my values and goals and are smart enough and educated enough to act in ways that help further the advancement of those values and goals.
However, I recognize that politicians who succeed in getting elected gain access to information that is not available to me. That information will occasionally make the correct action in some cases appear to be against my values when judged by someone with the information I have, but actually in accord with my values given the extra information the politician has.
To put it simply, you are more likely to trust the politicians you support than the politicians you do not support, and so you are more likely to give politicians you support the benefit of the doubt if they occasionally do things that appear to go against your shared values.
A representative democracy is a real democracy; it's just not a direct democracy. Please stop this nonsense of thinking that only direct democracies count as democracies.
A representative democracy is really a practical alternative to a real democracy which would have been hard to implement. That doesn't make it real though. Its just the practical best one can do, probably. That abstraction layer of representatives, who get a free reign, gets in the way, rendering it no longer a real democracy.
Direct democracies are not the only real democracies and it makes you look foolish and uneducated to insist it so.
The government is heading down a very dangerous path and has been for a long time. Members of both major parties are too blame, for they have allowed government to grow to a scale that is far too large to leave room for the individual to be truly free.
> Your rights come from our nature, not government.
Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech...
That wording seems to just assume that people have the right to speak freely, that no law is needed to give people that right, and that laws can only restrict that right (and such laws are explicitly forbidden). The phrase "God-given rights" is not meant to assert that God exists, it is meant to assert that certain rights transcend legal codes and exist regardless of what government happens to be in power (or even if there is a government in power).
Humans are able to raise kids, leave knowledge to them, and as long as they don't believe so hard in rebirth, treat history with importance. As such many different laws were left - it's for us to decide which make sense.
If we are left to nature, then we are left with whatever the animals have. It won't be anymore our human "nature".
We were not born to speak, record, etc. - over the long period of evolution it developed around us - along with raising kids. This is where we recognize the nature as important force, but not really for guiding us what to do - it's our environment, and we should care about it, but there is hardly any guidance what to do.
The government may not be interested in you specifically, but they are interested in the more influential figures who share those same opinions. The HBGary leak revealed the targeting of Glenn Greenwald, and surely you're aware of MLK. What if he had had some minor personal failing, and the FBI had used it against him to derail his movement?
No, my rights come what the people are willing to fight for and establish with government. Absent government, there are no rights, there is only what I'm willing to claim my rights are and what I can defend. There is no God and nature doesn't create rights.
Of course, the question of whether rights exist in the absence of government or if rights are created by the law is as old as the hills, so we may have to just disagree on this one.
Self evidence does not imply "correct". Far from it.
This has never before arose as a point of contention in conversation for me. You are being rather uniquely odd about it. And in case you missed it, I am not the person further up in the conversation.
While the religious might consider it self evident, the non religious don't so your choice of wording has the opposite affect that you intend on those of us who consider it nonsense. You've taken something simple like the phrase self evident and replaced it with something provocative and not immediately apparent in meaning to the non religious.
Some people consider faith a virtue, others consider it idiotic, so it seems a poor thing to introduce when you can simply and unambiguously say self evident. I am not unique in this, and it's got nothing to do with being correct or not, rather its about a poor choice in communication by choosing language that means different things to different people. To consider god a synonym for self evident is simply an absurd notion to me and I'm sure to most atheists.
To be explicit, I am an atheist. More to the point, I am an anti-theist atheist. I think poorly of those who believe in gods. There are very few things I think more idiotic in this world than the belief in gods of any sort.
This said I understand the terminology "self-evident" and do not pretent do muddy my understanding simply because I disagree and disrespect the beliefs of the religious. Things that are considered self-evident by believers are rarely believed by non-believers. Why should they be? If a follower considers something to be self-evident that means that they are not providing any justification to non-believers. Something that is self-evident has no justification outside of itself. There is a reason atheists such as ourselves find this to be absurd and damaging when applied outside of extraordinarily limited domains.
Believers in American style democracy consider certain rights to be self-evident, they provide no justification for these things. Believers of gods similarly provide absolutely no justification for their believes. Both are accurately described as "self-evident" believes, from the perspective of believers. Were they not considered such, then their believers would provide justifications.
We need to show Obama and the other leaders that standing up against irrational fear of inevitable crime IS a tenable political position
There is another issue that hasn't been discussed enough, and this quote from the article simultaneously refers to the need to discuss "balance" between security and freedom, while also unquestioningly keeping alive the idea that there is a grave threat and hence need for outsized security.
So, the question is also, what is the true scale and number of these so-called "terrorism threats"? And, how do you measure the required balance without a true assessment of the actual threat (vs. assuming it)?
After 9/11 we went into this permanent "War on Terror" war-footing, wherein this notion of an overwhelming threat of terrorism was simply assumed (ex. by this article).
But, when, if ever, do we question whether that posture still makes sense (or ever did, for that matter)?
"9/11: Explosive Evidence - Experts Speak Out": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddz2mw2vaEg
Less people die by terror than by any remotely significant event category. I imagine the last few years will go down in the history books as a good example why the primary product of terror is fear and hysteria, and direct damage caused is purely incidental. Of course the indirect damage terrorized societies do to themselves is stupendously expansive.
As far as cost, nuclear has the fewest deaths per unit energy generated (yes, even including renewables) and is only more expensive than fossil-fueled solutions which would be disfavored due to carbon emissions concerns. Renewable can be less expensive (which is why I mentioned it).
The current nuclear cost estimates include some rather insane design margins, containments, redundant system after redundant system which could all probably be reduced a bit without appreciably affecting deaths/TW-hr, which would make it cheaper.
Also, a major portion of the expense is from very restrictive contamination handling requirements to keep radiation exposure to the workers themselves at extremely low levels. These levels could probably also be increased without detectable increase in cancer rate (in fact, it may even reduce cancer incidence; see radiation hormesis). Would we really say that nuclear workers absolutely much be safer than coal plant workers, coal miners, etc.? We do now, and this also makes nuclear more expensive.
Besides, if it's true that there is an undeniable nexus between all civilian nuclear power programs and nuclear weapons programs then it is probably imperative to take much stronger action against Iran than we are currently taking, since we can't trust their assurances that their program is strictly for civilian power generation. Unless of course, we're willing to allow them to further destabilize the whole Middle East region.