☆☆四星级☆☆Economist Debate阅读写作分析----Privacy and Security

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DECISION

Mr Daniel Franklin   

The result is in, and by a handsome margin you have voted against the motion—in other words, in defence of privacy and the arguments advanced by Bob Barr.

Two points in particular seem to have carried the day. First, the majority plainly agreed that privacy is sacrosanct, not a subordinate principle in the pecking order. Second, most people felt that nothing in the current concern over terrorism justified sacrificing privacy on the grounds of pragmatism. As Tim Gatto put it: “I would rather face terrorists than live in a nation without liberty.”

Martin H’s comment, written from a country he says is commonly viewed as having “one of the nastiest regimes in the world”, seems to me to reflect the general sentiment that determined the outcome of the vote: “An argument now often used to justify introduction of extensive legislation violating privacy in Europe is that in our ‘free western world’ a person who has nothing to hide has nothing to fear. However, my concern is that no one controls the controller and there is a general lack of accountability of those who have the right to intrude on my privacy.”

It has been a good debate, with excellent contributions from Bob Barr and Neil Livingstone as well as from the many people who took part from our virtual debating floor. I would also like to acknowledge the contribution of our four guest contributors: W. Kenneth Ferree, Scott Berinato, Donald Kerr and Tom Sanderson.

Mr Ferree, president of the Progress and Freedom Foundation, points out that privacy is not so simple to define. “The difficulty with this debate is that privacy is not a static concept … Privacy is, after all, only what we as a society say it is.”

Mr Berinato, executive editor of CSO magazine, argues that ceding personal privacy because of terrorism is a disproportionate response, “akin to suggesting that we abandon San Francisco … because some day there might be an earthquake”. And he challenges the notion that privacy and security are in some kind of tug-of-war, a zero-sum game.

Mr Kerr agrees: “In my life and in my work, I start with the belief that you need to have both safety and privacy, and that when we try to make it an either/or proposition, we are making a mistake.” He adds: “Some people probably have a hard time believing that, though, given my day job.” Mr Kerr is America’s principal deputy director of national intelligence.

Mr Sanderson of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies provides what can serve as a fitting last word. He suggests that we “recognise that both sides of the debate have merit and work quickly but thoughtfully towards greater security with a minimal erosion of privacy”.

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COMMENTS(技术原因。。请务必倒着看。。。汗)

jaysonrex wrote:

Everything in life is relative - especially concepts. Since the general clamor for freedom is as old as one cares to imagine, most people would subscribe unconditionally to the idea at the expense of their own security. This is understandable since most people know little if anything about lack of security. All they know the media provided them with, and this is a very poor and often biased substitute for first-hand experience - blood spurting, body parts flying and what is left of a human being laying in the gutters.

On the other hand, freedom without security has very serious drawbacks. After all, without freedom one can still have life - which can be improve upon, again, once civilization manages to utterly destroy terrorists, wherever they are hidden; without life, what good is freedom for?

Fantasies and lofty principles aside, one must remember that according to the Judeo-Christian teachings there is nothing more sacred than life. Other religions have a different view, not only on the value of life but also, and especially, on the value of freedom and what it really means. For such people, security is not a philosophical concept but merely a visceral reaction.

Finally, when one loves something, one must be prepared to make sacrifices. Since we are so dedicated to "freedom for all", we must be prepared to give up part of it in order to preserve the rest of what we managed to achieve over centuries and are presently so very proud of: our freedom.

bookkeeper wrote:

To add a bit of the real world to this debate, we can say that individual privacy, as it was understood prior to September 11th in the U.S., has been eroded in the intervening six years. The resulting six years can give us some small guidance on whether such acts were justified. Speaking empirically, no new terrorist attacks have taken place within the U.S., so we could infer that the measures taken since 2001 have been effective without, to the casual viewer, producing a measurable loss of real civil liberties.

Mr. Barr's argument attempts to define the pro out of the debate by arguing that security measures do far more than erode liberty, they annihilate it. I ask the Con if he would define where our liberties have been eroded and the definable negative impact said erosion has produced. If compelling evidence of harm cannot be presented, I must remain Pro.

vonhist wrote:

There is no reason why information could not be deleted after checks are done. Evidence suggests this is not happening therefore I vote no!

davidhutchinson wrote:

We have never stopped living in a village nor belonging to a tribe. Our tribe knows us and we care for each other. Privacy is odd and anti-social. It is a concept that exists in urban, secretive, selfish societies. Openness and mutual help can reduce the role of the state and its cost, and return us to free/cheap support relationships. And if we are worried about security, then openness is informative and protective. Who are you and what do you want? Nothing wrong with that question?

westcoastUS wrote:

#1 I apologize for mistakenly posting my 1st comment twice.

#2 In the US we have special courts who are supposed to pass on law enforcement requests for monitoring of various 'private' communications (FISA courts, I think). My understanding is that these courts are designed to give fast judgements or even provisional OK's if time is of the essence to allow data monitoring or a wire tap. The current administration says that these courts hinder data & communication monitoring and need to be bypased. I've called my representative in Congress to ask why the administration makes this claim. The congressional aide said that when this question is raised the administration representatives say that the reasons that the courts hinder investigations cannot be disclosed (the reasons are secret). This sounds like we're on the road to Orwell's 1984.

westcoastUS wrote:

Two questions to the speakers.

First to Mr. Barr. In your opening statement you say, "The reality is, you will not find terrorists, if at all, by gathering good intelligence, and by adhering to sound intelligence and law enforcement techniques." Could you explain what you mean by this? What is your position on how would one go about finding terrorists?

Second question is to Mr. Livingstone. Your position is that government must be allowed to be more intrusive in order to protect us from the terrorist threats. How would you insure that the wrong individuals are not identified and subjected to the full force of the law? What happens if some innocent persons are subjected to police action and imprisoned? How do such people get themselves expeditiously made whole (release from detention, discard wrongful criminal record, have their reputation restored, etc)? How can we be sure that future leaders will not misuse the expanded law enforcement powers that you advocate?

Albionshores wrote:

One cannot argue from absolutes for Security itself is not an absolute but relative. What I consider secure, you may not. What you find a justifiable invasion of privacy due to your perception/paranoia, I might not share that perception. So this is not a question of absolutes, it is a question of authoritarian over libertarian/individualism. Does your paranoia or lack of security justify you allowing your representatives to reduce the liberties of others against their wishes although they have done nothing against you?

It should not be a case of granting a government more jurisdiction, more authority, more controls for they are the instigators, their policy causes much of the threat, their grandstanding and oversimplifying warps the projected reality and contemporary politics seldom lends itself to telling the truth. Government should not be encouraged to look into the lives of individuals rather individuals should be encouraged to look into their governments and empowered to hold them accountable. Along the lines the message somehow has been twisted. People are expected to listen, serve, work for, and submit to the government. That is Authoritarian. A Government that listens to, then serves and works for the people, and in doing so empowering the individual, is Libertarian.

To support the erosion of individual rights at the hands of government monitoring is to submit to an authoritarian regime. Putting it in such plain language does not make it palatable for those who would support such a thing. It is much harder to rationalise fascism than it is a loss of personal privacy.

jomoralesmd wrote:

The term "individual privacy" must be defined first.

Quinctius wrote:

Mr. Barr, our Con, quotes the US Constitution, which interposes the word "unreasonable" to qualify those personal searches that are prohibited. Reasonability is a standard employed throughout Anglo American law to guide proper conduct. It seems that the proposition would be entirely acceptable to all if the word "reasonable" were inserted before the word "erosion". That being said, that concept seems inherent in the formulation "some erosion of individual privacy". It seems evidently right. We must rely on government to behave reasonably in achieving its principal aims of establishing a groundwork for civil society, and if it does not, as has happened in the past, then of course it should be changed. No one wants to live in a state of nature, where we each must defend ourselves against suicide bombers. As in many such collective dangers, we must delegate that task in large part to a reasonable government.

(I'm also afraid there is a typo ("not") in Mr. Barr's penultimate sentence. Editor, please note.)

Redhead wrote:

The road to a totalitarian state usually begins with the cry for the need for stronger national security. What person in their right mind would abdicate there constitutional freedoms to a government that except for 9/11 has been whipping up the security threat. The bombing of tube stations in England or trains in Spain did not result in the blockade of borders or putting innocent people on no-fly lists or locking people up without trial. Yet it appears that there are some who still believe in weapons of mass destruction, who now clamour to invade Iran further exacerbating the need for more national security. George Orwell would be proud. You my have guess I oppose this proposition

Comments from the floor

greendinjin wrote:

Ultimately, the question comes down to whether the privacy erosion is voluntary or coerced. Bag checks for boarding airplanes are OK; government wiretapping, without the consent of either party involved or the company owning the wires, is not.

Bo J. Howell wrote:

Part of the problem with this topic is security threats are generally concentrated in a few specific locations, while privacy intrusion effects more people.

ganv wrote:

To begin let's agree on the absolutes:
"Security in the modern age cannot be established"
"Some invasion of individual privacy is inevitable"
In the strict sense, these are both true. So we can rephrase the question in a more sensible manner--"What kinds of invasion of individual privacy are acceptable sacrifices in order to improve security." I personally am much less concerned with the actual invasion of privacy than I am with the government's use of such information to achieve goals that have nothing to do with security. So I think the debate should be about how to make governments accountable for their use of private information.

luke2118 wrote:

9/11 changed the rules of the game. Dealing with 21st century tech savvy terrorists who murder innocents for their "cause" requires unprecedented change in the "conventional" mode of thinking. Ideological hoopla over personal freedoms pales in comparison to the more immediate threat of someone flying planes into buildings. People love talking about personal freedom, but these are probably the same idiots who lose credit cards and give out personal information to telemarketers.

BiffaBacon wrote:

In this day and age, I think it's almost a given that to protect us our governments have to play Big Brother. If more CCTV means I don't get mugged or blown up by radicals, I'm all for it.

My MAIN concern is if these threats dissipate, will we then be so accustomed to eroded privacy that we won't think twice about an unwarranted invasion of privacy. There's also the flimsy justifications the government come up with the invade our privacy, not just in the real world, but also in cyberspace.

I can imagine this is how the back story to Orwell's 1984 would have begun, one privacy issue at a time, and personally it frightens me.

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Art Teacher wrote:

For the first time, I'm voting an unpopular position, and based on the wording. And again, the Economist's question is poorly worded. Yes Security requires the erosion of privacy. But, is security the main goal? That's more debatable. Both speakers here made some good points, but are really arguing on separate topics. For this debate to work, Mr Livingstone needs to address mass databases, while Mr. Barr needs to address wire tapping and baggage checks, etc. Both sides would do well to discuss Guantanamo, as well.

I voted Pro, but with a few caveats:
1. Saying privacy wasn't a founding principal of the US is rightfully condtradicted by Bob Barr.
2. I'm against warrantless wiretapping. I do support making the process of getting warrants faster - within 24 hours. It seems, once evidence has come to light, it ought to be an easy decision, and there ought to be qualified judges on hand to make the call.
3. Phone calls and internet browsing are certainly private afffairs, unless conducted by public pay phones or in internet cafes. Calling someone is the equivalent of having a guest in your home. Internet browsing is different, because it's often assumed you don't know who you're communicating with. Only in a reputable site such as this one would I even believe you are who you say your are. So, for a policeman/etc. to pose as someone else, however dishonest, is perfectly legal, and ethical. Monitoring websites for potential viruses is also crucial to its functioning, as well as the security of bank and govt databases.
4. One must remember that America has a history of violating private rights, from day one as a colony. We've burned witches, interned over 100,000 Japanese, gone through McCarthyism, and then Nixon illegally wiretapped thousands of people. Add to that, all the people (some US citizens) shipped to Guantanamo, which was completely unnecessary to hold and prosecute these people, and all the torture we put them through, and I really get embarassed to be an American.

On the Con side, quoting Ayn Rand won't win me over. I only read one of her books, but her logic was so faulty I could barely stomach it. Better, to quote Ben Franklin who said, "Those who sacrafice freedom for safety deserve neither." beyond that, Mr. Barr has said "steps need to be taken" to prevent terrorism. What steps? If you don't like the current steps, please provide some alternatives. This has been my unending gripe in all the debates thus proposed by the economist - if you don't like the current system, what alternatives do you propose, to tackle real problems?

Mensoelrey wrote:

This debate is at least partly a question of culture. Some cultures value privacy more highly than security and vice versa.

That said, we should also be on the lookout for predatory governments and their disdain for privacy. If there is no reason to suspect I am engaged in illicit activity (and criticising the government is not a crime), there is no reason to invade my privacy. Any government caught doing so should be penalised (if in no other way than lambasted by the press).

Temporary erosions of liberties last as long as the war lasts--and the War on Terror is indefinite. We must not get caught on the fear- and indifference-paved path to authoritarianism.

asmith1024 wrote:

While I support the death penalty in principle, I oppose it in practice because no legal system can guarantee that innocents will not be condemned. At first blush I am tempted to apply the same logic to issues of privacy: while I accept that wide-ranging surveillance powers make it easier to detect those planning mass murder, it is inevitable that these powers will be abused. Furthermore the mere existance of these powers does not mean they will be used effectively. It is noted that several early warning signs of the September 11 attacks were ignored or incorrectly processed by the relevant agencies.

That said, the threat of tyranny beats the threat of death, every time. Alive, I can at least try to do something about the former, should it arise. No amount of privacy is an adequate compensation for my death, or the death of my children.

WOI wrote:

Individual privacy is a prerequisite for individual security. Without it, the only security possible is that of the governing elite.

PostColonialTech wrote:

Just taking this in, but I'll first join Jon Pincus in noting that Bob Barr (much as I may hate to agree with someone of his political bent) has the better argument and the history of individual rights on his side. Neil Livingstone not only gets the literature wrong, he turns the US Constitution and English Common Law on its head by arguing that the government has all rights not specifically denied it by law.

That's either Fascism or really bad civics education, I suppose.

One must recall the most recent example of these issues pre 9/11. With every denial of civil rights in Ireland by the UK government, violence and terrorism increased. With every move away from authoritarianism, these conditions decreased.

So, the destruction of human rights is not only clearly wrong, it is a proven failure in creating security.

che_Libertarian wrote:

Those who give up their freedoms and personal privacy for security often don't get it....

billy budd wrote:

some loss of privacy however no loss of freedom

Alfonso Dizenzo wrote:

We gain freedom for the confrontation's of our privacy

Comments from the floor

JonPincus wrote:

Thanks once again to The Economist for hosting this interesting and extremely timely debate!

My initial reaction is that the 'pro' speaker has taken Mr. Steinbeck's quote seriously out of context. By contrast, Bob Barr has accurately reflected Ayn Rand's attitudes. So for literary criticism, the Con side has an early advantage.

And similarly on the issues. Well said, Mr. Barr. Based on the opening statements, I'm voting 'Con'.

futprints wrote:

I feel that the resources of the nation should be effectively chanelled towards good intelligence and specific targets; rather than invading the privacy of ALL CITIZENS!!! It is a waste of human and material resources that can be put to better use. Remember that "bad intelligence" got us into the Iraq mess!!

JGMB Br wrote:

Security in the modern age must be achieved without any erosion of individual fundamental rights. Security is a way to enjoy our life and enjoy our life requires freedom which is guaranteed by privacy.

AngelaJ wrote:

It would feel safer to vote Pro if the government and associated agencies appeared reasonably trustworthy/competent. However, in the UK at least, repeated instances of corruption (such as recent bribery scandals) and sheer ineptitude (personal child benefit data anyone?) make it impossible to trust that the data would be used for just the lofty ideals of counterterrorism. On the positive side though, when it's this disorganised there's no need to fear an Orwellian future!

J. Heidbrink wrote:

As the opening statements show, the question is slightly erroneously posed. It is not whether some erosion of privacy is necessary - as that would assume that privacy is an absolute right - but where to strike the balance between security and liberty. In other words, the question is whether we ought to depart from the traditional balance between these two values - which is based on the assumption that people communicate by paper, and that you always can identify the person behind a communication - or whether a new balance needs to be struck.

The opening statements also appear to implicitly discuss the provisions of the Patriot Act (an appalling misnomer, by the way) and of similar Acts over the past few years. Now, if that is the question, the answer surely must be "no". There is simply no reason to depart from safeguards such as the need for a permission of a judge to wiretap a suspect, nor for knowing who reads what books (it would be much more honest to introduce censorship, if some books are deemed to be dangerous). I cannot help but feel that September 11 has been used to justify government surveillance of the populace to an extent that is dangerous.

Given the abstract nature of the proposition, however, I don't think one can convincingly argue that the traditional balance can be maintained. Electronic communication can be made anonymous in a way that necessitates surveillance of large amounts of such communication to filter out the bits that cause justified alarm. We need to adapt to modern techniques: as a lawyer, I know the extent to which laws in the Western world are dependent on paper, and I think it is time to reconsider our positions.

Any such adjustment of the balance, however, must be accompanied by a discussion about safeguards. The U.S., the E.U., and the U.N. have been deplorably swift to shift the balance between privacy and security, and equally deplorably slow to construct safeguads to ensure that the policeman who next stops me in traffic for a routine control isn't able to ascertain my religious and political beliefs, my sexual orientation, my salary, and my shoe size. Such things are none of that policeman's business.

Whilst I, therefore, vote "pro" on the proposition in its general form, I remain a staunch critic of most of the legislation enacted in various countries since September 11.

openmind wrote:

I would like to refute the following comment from Mr Livingstone. "In Britain, closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras are used to fight crime and have elicited little public concern or criticism." The above simply isn't so. There is widespread concern over the proliferation of CCTV. 'Mission creep' has been attempted, for example with CCTV that combines microphones and/or speakers. These are a dangerous step towards an authoritarian mindset by the authorites who already misuse powers, c.f. the bugging of members of parliament illegaly. While many Con arguments may seem like cliche, they are no less valid. I readily remember the cold war and the thousands that died trying to escape a totalitarian surveilance society. To presume that "we" in the liberal west would never go down that route is naive.

cretella wrote:

Gentlemen:

As you mention you welcome views from outside the U.S or from outside the anglo-saxon world, here is a view from a lawyer form a civil law country, Brasil (with "s", please).

There are no absolute rights.

Fundamental rights are a modern conquest, no doubt, having been affirmed and posited in many Constitutions since the 1960's.

Take freedom of the press, for instance. Basically, one may write or publish whatever one wishes. However, if the information is false and there is damage caused to someone, materially or morally, there is a case for compensation (lawsuit asking for damages).

Now, about privacy: so, whereas no one may, in principle, poke into someone else's bank account, or tap his/her phone or e-mail, what if the person is planning a crime ? Such as counterfeiting, drug trafficking or a terrorist attack ?

Therefore, under some circumstances - threat to society in general, or threat to some individuals, in particular - the fundamental right to privacy must yield to the fundamental rights to life or to ordre public, which all citizens enjoy in a civilized and democratic society. And the judge is the person in charge of deciding where the best interests of society lie, in the privacy of a potential criminal, or in the protection of public interest.

There is a high price to pay for democracy - and that is to find the right balance on how the law is applied and fundamental rights are guaranteed to citizens.

José Cretella Neto
International lawyer from Brazil.
PhD in International Law, University of São Paulo.
Over 10 law books published (see my website www.examedaordem.com.br)

Reira wrote:

I wonder whether Mr. Barr could elaborate on what he thinks would be a viable policy for preventing terrorist attacks if he believes that gathering intelligence is a waste of money. He is very vague on this towards the end and I don't believe he presents a reasonable alternative. Furthermore, he says that it is unsupported by history to react towards terrorism in this way but it is precisely because this is an unprecedented threat that we must take new measures to tackle it. Anyway, it will be very interesting to hear any counter-arguments.

ggwoodhouse whitehorse wrote:

I believe there is a very thin line between facilitating security and quashing dissent. The more strongly one sees oneself as being on the side of angels, the easier it is to see anyone who disagrees with the accepted world view to be part of the Axis of Evil.

The other issue is that with increased intrusion comes increased restrictions on public access to information, preventing people accused of representing a threat from seeing any of the evidence against them and responding to it... a very slippery slope, I think.

Certainly we need to provide authorities with a range of effective tools to help identify these threats, but no government I have seen has demonstrated the altruism to deserve the right to gain access to private information. (As an example, the US suppressed eye-witness testimony in the case of a supposed terrorist that contradicted the "official" view...)

ChrisDowney wrote:

I‘m really torn and am not yet sure how to vote.

I agree with Mr. Barr that privacy underpins freedom. Yet, I am not convinced that invading or reducing our privacy will not increase security. In other words: what if it could be shown that reducing privacy does indeed increase the ability to prevent some terrorist attacks?

On the other hand, Mr. Livingstone is correct that jihadists are attempting to use our very openness against us. By way of a different example, right now, in Fairfax VA, there is a mask wearing man going around attacking women at all times of the day. The points of attack encircle my home. My wife is at home during the day with my 3 small children. The idea of CCTV cameras is very appealing as there have been at least 5 attacks with no good description of the suspect. If the use of CCTV is considered an erosion of privacy that increases security, I am for it in this case because it would increase the likelihood of early suspect identification and capture.

Mr. Livingstone is probably correct about American pragmatism, but perhaps for a different reason. I don‘t accept airplane searches because it increases security. I’ve subjected myself to them because flying for an hour is the only alternative to driving for 10 to 12 hours.

I see some truth in both sides, but I‘m not sure how to combine the two.

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Will Buck 23 BM&IS Student UK wrote:

Who governs governments? In my opinion, the populace no longer feel empowered to affect political decisions.
Where will lines be drawn for issues regarding civil and human rights (if at all)?
Who draws them? Who decides what lies within our "national interest"?
I'm not pretending to know all the answers, perhaps we need more mechanisms for transparency in governmental decision making? After all, it is widely understood within business fields that entities (as groups or individuals) have, and act in accordance with, their own agendas. So to pretend that decisions are made solely in the public interest implies a unitary perspective, which is unrealistic?

rob500 wrote:

There seems to be an implied assumption that the steps being taken by western democracies to fight terrorism, particularly those steps that can be argued erode individual privacy, are the "right" ones to defeat terrorism. The Pro camp haven't made the case that they are "right and necessary" and the Con camp haven't made the case that they are "ineffective and unnecessary".

Democracies are historically pretty inept at waging war until the whole of society is galvanised by the threat. The problem with terrorism is that the security forces fight the war and the rest of society carries on pretty well as usual. Whereas what is needed is the deployment of the best intellects in society to deal with this type of threat; precedent tells us that these people are in society at large, not just in government.
We need to find a way of engaging the best minds on the threat. Then I suspect we will fight terrorism with more effect than today and we will do so with little or no erosion of individual privacy.

In the long run you cannot defeat terrorism by compromising your democratic freedoms. The processes that governments adopt should be subject to independent scrutiny to ensure that the right balance between security and rights is maintained. Sadly all too often governments are overbearing, unsubtle, inefficient and arrogant. Their intentions may be sound but implementation is mediocre.

In the meantime I want to vote No but evidence to date will make me vote Yes. Can we have an Abstain vote?

Comments from the floor

Pritish wrote:

Man loves his privacy and desires that his privacy shall be secure. To achieve such high standards of security , the erosion of privacy to a certain degree is unavoidable in these initial phases of security systems development. Remember the crash test is inevitable in car manufacturing to ensure the passengers security.

Caravanserai wrote:

Let's be as pragmatic as possible: do you have that much to hide from the Big Brother's eye? if those cameras, those auditors, those inspections erode your daily pride... then you might be hiding more than you think! It's futile to defend absolute individual privacy; we all belong in this frantic multi-layered society!

Shoshie wrote:

In the modern age, intelligence is the primary mode of warfare (followed by physical violence, of course). Attacks on security (a.k.a. terrorist attacks, for example) are generated specifically to have the largest possible outcome, and thus have a lot of planning and intelligence-gathering in their planning. To counteract these forces, more effective intelligence units have to outrun them and catch their planning. In order to have an advantage, these intelligence teams need to have shortcuts; namely, security breeches. In the long run can anyone really say it's not worth it?

LJ Davies wrote:

Security in the modern age is designed to defend the freedoms and individual privacy that many security hawks seem to want to abolish. If the security forces violate these rights, what are they defending?

I.J. wrote:

For me there has to be some compromise in individual privacy to facilitate security and more open communication. However any moves to improve security should be rigorously scrutinised with the premise of having clear safeguards in place and minimising any
potential erosion of privacy. These measures should also be regularly reviewed rather than being accepted as part of the status quo.

kanandi14 wrote:

Security and privacy go hand in hand. You cannot talk about security
without privacy. Privacy is a sort of discipline a person has in his life. It measures the way a man behaves in the public. If security is
entrusted to the hands of good manners, honest plus privacy,the goals
of security is likely to be achieved.

Perry Mason wrote:

Hi,
As far as freedom of privacy is concerned. I would totaly agree that for the proper working of humanity it is a prerequisite. Examples to that are unending. 【Had Galileo be imprisoned before he came up with his invention we could still be in the dark ages.】这个，很有意思的角度，很多旧的例子可以拿来这样翻新试试，对付一些BT观点 But at the sametime to overdo it results in terrorism and corruption of mind. So to avoid it ,Our ancestors, the people in power thought of devising ways of putting in Checks to privacy of citizens and non-citizens. But are they intellectually strong and open enoguh to take the power and responsibility that comes along with that?. Thats a big question that is to be answered. Lets take an example where a person in power has the right to files which contains private information of various eminent personalities. Would not that person be tempted to use the private-files to blackmail and harras the victim??..Is not it a terrorism. You are terrorising a person mentally...So i feel though Security and Checks on Privacy is very important but need to put in regulation in this body is equally impoertant.For a proper governance you need OPPOSITION....In this case a Regulatory Body which puts Checks on the Surveillance Body.

bhujangadev wrote:

The entire gamut of perceived terrorist threats have led to peculiar, unanticipated and unexpected erosion of individual privacy in the name of security; what beholds the the future is wearisome to imagine

lalitshingal wrote:

We have paronia generating politicos (George W Bush included) using this 'compromise of liberty as a need to safeguard against the free roving radicals' using wrong tools for expediency rather than as tools of last resort. Till this intrusion is in somebody else's personal affair, all justifications are trotted out. The moment this curbing of personal liberties start impinging on the self or one's life style then the same guys start spewing out different logics for the same intrusions to not to apply on themselves. One can go out and knock down doors/ lifestyles of cowering populations with the full might of the US of A and call it safeguarding these very same people from tyrants. Who pray are the tyrants? Only when the person intruding/ curbing the liberties realises that his or her actions also lead to tyranny, can one really say that the actions taken in the garb of security were called for or otherwise. I for one would definitely feel that one's security is the other person's harrasment. Who decides?

Beachfield wrote:

All the billion‘s of $ spent on security have been spent on a mirage. The need for security as discussed in this debate perhaps dates from the Dawson’s Field Hijackings on September 6th. 1970. Since then how people have been killed or seriously injured in terrorist‘s attacks? How many terrorists have been arrested? What has been the cost?

Sirajul Islam wrote:

Ensuring security demands all-out analysis of a given situation, including all internal and external factors. In many cases, serious security problems arise from within. Palaces are seldom seen vulnerable from external attack, but conspiracies within. I think, it is the most common scenario that can be applicable to all levels - international, national etc etc. It is almost immoral to erode privacy of the commoners irrespective of race, religion, class or creed in the name of security. The idea is a wrong one, and can never be successful. It is also breach of the fundamental rights of human beings on which modern age built over time. If we want to kill our credits so far earned over the centuries, only then we can think that security in the modern age cannot be established without some erosion of individual privacy... Thanks.

BulldogDrummond wrote:

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

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G.T. wrote:

The thing is, prior to modern times, snooping on citizens required a LOT more effort than it does now.

Initially, you had to physically intercept written mail/packages, open and reseal them without arousing the recipients suspicion.

Later, you had to be physically present at a line to tap into it, either at a juncture (like on the street), or at the switch itself at the telco. Note that I'm not talking about the *legality* here ... merely the physical ability.

Legally, while it's not too hard to tap a line on the street, it's hard to do it circumspectly, and if you're doing it at the switch, you need permission and access to the physical equipment, as provided by the telco. This latter bit largely *enforces* a need for some sort of paper trail.

However, in the modern era, tapping a cellphone meant, until recently, merely having a rudimentary knowledge of electronics to build a frequency scanner, or enough money to buy one off the shelf. It was, even then, relatively cheap to get such equipment.

Digital phones have made it *somewhat* more difficult, but still not impossible. The bar has just been raised a little. Bluetooth largely negated any security advantage switching from analogue to digital provided.

Looking at computers ... How many people have wifi these days, with little or no security on their machines? Scriptkiddies can hack machines without the consumer ever being aware of it. Fortunately, wifi ranges are fairly limited, so you have to be physically near the computer, but even sitting outside in a van will give you access to many peoples routers and wifi connections, far more inconspicuously than the "repair guy" perched up on a telephone pole ever could.

Now, with the introduction of VoIP, it's even easier. You don't have to be anywhere NEAR your location. All you need is a copy of the datastream. You can get this for a surprising number of people by simply scanning the neighbourhood and using THEIR wifi routers to tap into their IP stream (most never bother changing the default admin passwords).

If you have access to a telco, it's even easier, as you only need set up a feed *once*, and it will provide you with that datastream forever. No more sitting around AT the telco, trying to monitor calls. Just set up a rule in the network that copies all the VoIP traffic to another IP ... *anywhere* on the internet.

You can buy software off the shelf for only a few thousand dollars that can decode those streams on an ongoing basis (this is how call centers record their calls), while sitting comfortably in an office 1/2 way around the world. The software can do all sorts of things, like speech analytics, tonal changes, etc. This isn't Govt-issue software either -- it's plain off-the-shelf commercial software that's freely available to anyone to purchase.

Whether we like it or not, our privacy is largely *gone*. The information is out there already. What limits its usefulness is not getting it, but sifting through *all* the available data to pick out just what you want.

rbratt wrote:

Technologies have always enabled both the villains and the State, so I am unswayed that we live in a different time that requires different rules. The democracies that we enjoy in the west do limit their governments' control over their people, because regardless of how despicable the criminal element may be it is more objectionable for a government to exceed those established boundaries of control over its citizens. I am not naive about the current threat, nor do I coddle terrorists or other criminals, and I do want my government to protect me. But that protection must include real checks on power (transparency, review, approval from other branches), because unchecked power is quickly expanded to uses for which it was not intended. And that is the danger with this issue. I have a visceral reaction against any expansion of government at the expense of my liberties, and though I think I am open-minded to any counter arguments, Mr. Livingstone will have to find a more compelling path for me to follow him to the Pro column.

G.T. wrote:

Mr. Barr notes that President Bush states the problem is a new one, but then denigrates the position by stating that it is not supported by history. Either Mr. Barr has a conflict there, or he's saying that this is indeed not a new problem.

However, I find it hard to understand how, given todays world of internet, cell phones, data encryption, etc, how it can not be a new problem. The idealism leading to the content and desires of those who would harm us may not be new, but the methodology used to implement it certainly is.

Second, Mr. Barr states "hen the privacy-based provisions in the Bill of Rights were crafted, debated, and adopted by the US in the years immediately after the fledgling country won its independence ... ". There are no such provisions in the Constitution. The right to privacy is an interpreted right, based on modern interpretations of a number of explicitly granted rights. It is a constructed right, and for all the importance politicians give it, apparently not one important enough to warrant its own amendment.

We live in a world today where privacy is a myth. Anyone who truly believe their communications are private needs to study up on telecommunication and how it works these days. The more advanced we become, the less privacy we have. It is no particular hardship to monitor internet usage, or phone calls. All you need is some software freely available on the internet, and access to a data stream. The more important the stream, the more information you'll get.

I find it ironic Mr. Barr believes we are moving toward a MORE private society when every bit of new technology we adopt strips away our ability to safeguard our privacy.

icarus12 wrote:

I agree with jomoralesmd that there needs to be a working definition of privacy. The problem with arguing in these nebulous concepts is that there are shades of gray to privacy. Is the privacy of being able to have an untapped phone conversation on par with the privacy of being able to have your personal information disclosed only with your permission? What in fact makes information and actions personal? These questions are necessary if we are to determine what constitutes erosion of privacy and the larger question of are those benificial to security.

posted on 06/02/2008 23:15:19 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

bluebunny wrote:

Hilary will win and ensure we are secure.

Alotta wrote:

Kudos to Wenlib. This should not be an either/or debate. The problem is that the effort is being placed on the effects rather than the cause. Instead of attempting to thwart the terrorist's developing plans, efforts should be place on removing the motives for creating those plans. The current practices that are accomplished in the name of security are merely a bandage. They represent a reactionary mindset, and therefore should be limited in scope. However, the danger that exists is that America has declared war on a tactic, and therefore extended it's timeline indefinitely.

jjb1946 wrote:

As originally stated by Ben Franklin, "Those who would sacrifice freedom for security, deserve neither". That statement was well served then, as it is now.

Wenlib wrote:

I wonder if the "security or privacy" dichotomy is real. Certainly, governments find it expedient to promote the idea that one can only be safe if one permits government increasing ability to monitor our movements and interactions. This debate will be extremely interesting.

firesion wrote:

Ignorance is not the same thing as privacy. Information is pervasive just because you think that no one is watching does not mean the information is not available to those of us who understand technology and science. This should not be a debate on the erosion of individual privacy, but the erosion of individual ignorance. I can spy on any person without them knowing and they don't seem to care. Its only when the data is used in an action that it becomes concerning. Use logic and data to support your security policy and it will be fine. If you are waisting money wire taping everyone and you can not show that it has caught anyone stop doing it! If it works then keep doing it!. Security is best obtained in view of everyone. To support this fact look at the security of Linux VS Windows. Everyone can see Linux their is no hiding and thus virtually no security holes in Windows you have secrecy in the name of security which does not work. A practical approach to this can be seen in the Amber Alert system. Everyone knows who to look for, or what to look for and it works. Let everyone in the society know the system being used and they will work to fix the holes and keep the system from being abused.

pand0ra1 wrote:

There is too much control culture spreading around nations by special interest groups. When corprate sales and net incomes exceed the GNP of most nations, beware!

tory88 wrote:

Living in Britain, I have discovered at my expense that when large amounts of data are collected, they are a threat to privacy. This is evident in the fact that 30 million people lost details when two CDs were sent out unencrypted in the post. This means that potentially, an identity thief can have enough details to scam 30 million people. As such I argue that Privacy should be respected and only the essential details kept on record; these details should then be treated as a security risk when transported and so not sent in the common post! This incompetent act will have set many people in Britain firmly against any data collection at all.

In my mind, security is important, but is likely to be breached if potentially compromising details are stored indefinitely. I can safely say I am ashamed to live in a nanny-state country that has no respect for its citizen's privacy!

heysham007 wrote:

We have to trust ourselves not to elect a Government that will then abolish democracy (as Hitler did in 1936) and thus security comes well before individual privacy.

adityag wrote:

I don't really understand why we need to monitor behaviors and actions when the root problems aren't tackled in the first place. Wherein, there is some minimum level of monitoring might be required, but not to the level that induces paranoia in the society. Fear begets more fear. Instead of creating more fear(and inconvenience), try to find ways to diffuse that instead, and I feel that excessive monitoring isn't going to solve that problem.

China Bear wrote:

An individual's attitude to privacy is partly dependent on his perception of how much he has. The relative balance between need for protection from threats and how much information can be gotten when will appear the same to people in the future as it does now. So even if more is known, the relative amount of what is worth knowing won't change.

seiranzcc1UID：2514067

statusquocritical wrote:

I think that it is important that we distinguish between privacy and anonymity. Individuals who aspire to a state of anonymous persons appear to not realize that dysfunction, paranoia, and individual-isolation are the eventual outcomes of such a path. In addition, the underlying issue, i believe, is whether we trust the persons that perform the surveillance and those who have access to the information. If we do not trust our elected government to act (at least with initial intentions) in our best interest then all is lost and we may as well just throw up our hands - a pathetic and winless alternative. Further, I think it is important to analyze the thought-processes going on within the heads of those that feel that a surveillance-free society is desirable -- is this a natural anti-authoritarian bent? perhaps, a cowboy-like pride in enjoying being the judge of those things that are either their 'property' or under their 'jurisdiction' (however those terms are defined). I think that this is an unsophisticated thinking process that breeds polarization of values and unthoughtful action. Besides, in a purely economical sense: the amount of surveillance, and standardization of information gathering and processing capacity, is vastly improved in an 'economics-of-scale' sense with government orchestrating it nationwide. And finally, we need to get away and move beyond using such absurdly fuzzy concepts like 'personal freedoms' and 'privacy'. Which is not to say that we should not be without definite, precise, and practicable equivalents. Perhaps the answer lies with an analogy in technology - 'free and ubiquitous access to all [surveillance] information (perhaps on YouTube) - that the public may be the watchers of themselves'. I think that we are sophisticated enough to be able to 'handle' that type of transparency.

Pat Z wrote:

This debate loses its pragmatic value when we abstract out the particular policy being considered. Of course I believe that an appropriate level of airline security depends on security checkpoints that require passengers to pass through metal detectors. Of course I believe that an appropriate level of national security does not require granting the power to some federal agency to read any citizens emails at its own discretion.

Security policy has to and will adapt to be effective in an ever-changing world. As for the question of whether or not privacy will be eroded by this adaptation: I don't think we can come up with a meaningful answer unless debate is informed by information specific to individual policy proposals. The devil is in the details.

m ilci wrote:

The problem is how far we can trust Government, the civil service and politicians to act in good faith. Whenever we agree, or rather our representatives agree, to give more power to the Exucutive Branch of Government, we run an additional risk of abuse of those powers. The abuse can be commanded by the Executive from up down but can also be committed by individuals within the Government. Or even by outsiders gaining access to privileged information.
One should read Kafka to realise that these dangers are not new. One should not forget that the dreaded abreviations of GESTAPO, KBG, STASI and so on all translate as "Security servics to protect the State". The meaning of these words are not different from what is now called "Home Security". The difference is, of course, that in Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, East Germany and all those countries under Soviet Communist rule the security of the citizen, which should have been provided by the watching eyes of the Judiciary and the Legislative, has broken down. All power became concentrated in the hands of the Executive.
The question is how far our Executives in the Western Democarcies can go to escape those watchfull eyes in the name of protecting our Society and ourselves from Terrorist attacks.

The Motion Picture "The Lifes of the Others" a German film about the STASI of the Democratic Republic of Eastern Germany gives a good picture of what can happen with State ( or Home ) Security Services.
Even if it's members act in good faith doing there duty to protect Society from real or imagined threats.

The Price of Liberty is the eternal fight for it.

gghhgg wrote:

Naive view of Nonwesterner and some others about so called tech savvy terrorists prompted my second letter.

Besides the fact that governments are biggest abusers themselves. Terrorist or criminal is currently most likely to obtain sensitive information from the government. The more data is collected by government, police and companies, more is exposed by fraud or accident. Almost every week there is news about personal data of 1000s of people exposed because of programer's fault, stolen CD etc.

Misused surveillance data can do as much damage as poison. But poisons are strictly controlled, while surveillance is gathered by everybody everywhere.

gghhgg wrote:

Two real-life attempts of mass personal surveillance are trialed in Britain. First is plan of innocent-sounding road taxation. Instead of choosing one of many proven methods worldwide, British government investigates (seriously) possibility of fitting every car with transmitter and satellite collecting position of all cars in Britain.

Second attempt is also innocent sounding work safety announced by BBC this week. It involves bugging work clothing by radio tags, ostensibly to check if building workers don‘t spend too much time with work machinery. However, person wearing these tags can be scanned anytime by anybody.

Electronic tags are recent invention which potentially poses great threat to privacy. These grain-of-sand-sized tags, if implanted ubiquitously into objects, will de facto track position of people wearing tagged clothing or carrying tagging objects. It offers great opportunities for government to spy citizens. Worryingly, data collected by government or smaller businesses, local police etc. can leak to terrorists.

One possible solution is immediate law demanding companies to collect and store only as much data by electronic equipment as absolutely necessary. If you get customer card in shopping mall, grocery shop has no business to store data on which second you visited which shop 10 years ago. It makes also harder for government to spy citizens under innocent guises.

From practical to general matters: from point of view of head of state, one terrorist attack, or even small war, can hardly topple his government. Opposition leader can do it immediately. So there is incentive to use all powers against him. Therefore there is a good record to prove that whenever government gets power for purpose of safety, he starts abusing it.

I have good reasons to fear my own government more than terrorists. Governments abuse own citizens more often, more quickly and easily than terrorists. In 20. and 21. centuries, more people succumbed to purges and prison camps of own governments that bullets and bombs of foreign armies.

Surveillance is threat to democracy. Democracy prospers better when leaders have less technical and legal temptations to abuse society. Using surveillance data against opposition party or one group of society skews free choice in the country. Surveillance ban is as important and fundamental to modern democracy as e.g. ban of electing one president more than twice. Not because somebody elected many times or checking all e-mails automatically becomes totalitarian “ but because it is temptation to sin.

nonwesterner wrote:

In order to keep its citizens safe any responsible democracy will take a pragmatic path and that will involve some erosion of individual privacy especially in the context of tech-savvy terrorist.Terrorism has been there for ages but west became its victim very recently.So in the process of fighting it Government might make mistakes but since westerners have a open society, there will be some kind of feedback system as there have been throughout west's history so as time progresses a kind of equilibrium will be reached.

Comments from the floor

zibba wrote:

What exactly are government trying to secure us from?

Neil Shrubak wrote:

For starters, it's said to see the previous moderator, Mr. Cottrell, go. His comments will be sorely missed. It's nice to see that the moderator's torch has been passed to able hands of Mr. Franklin. I am very excited to find myself on the same side with PostColonialTech and with Mr. Barr in this debate. I am quite confident that I would normally have lots of issues to debate with either, the reference to Ayn Rand included.

Before the argument, I cannot resist a quote from Eco: "It strikes me as paradoxical that someone has to struggle for the defense of privacy in a society of exhibitionists."

Now...

1. The major issue of this debate has become, PRAISE HEAVEN, the trade-off between the fundamental rights of an individual and the government's need for effective administration of the state. I hope this remains the focus of the comments, and that the topics concerning two-bit computer hackers will remain beyond the scope of the discussion. The airport searches and closed-circuit TV street monitors should be excluded, too, as examples of legitimate state police functions in PUBLIC space. If some people find the car license plates to be a violation of their privacy, it's a problem, but it is their problem.

2. In support of Mr. Barr's argument, the right for privacy is indeed the fundamental right of an individual throughout the history of Western civilization. It has been argued* that the foundation of Rome has to do with the same issue, as one brother killed another for the violation of certain boundaries. That was also the utmost manifestation of the security mindset in action. I hope it is obvious why such a behavior would be found objectionable today.

3. The oft-quoted saying of Ben Franklin can be traced further down in history, too.** To the best of my knowledge the original saying was: "The people who prize privilege over principle will soon lose either." Who needs safety, if its price is oppression? Indeed, many people do. I am glad that there are always enough people of the other kind, the kind that would stand up and say "I will die for my rights." One of the comments in this debate stated the opposite, to the tune of live today, fight tomorrow. I can only respond to that with the motto of the State of New Hampshire: "Live Free or Die." This is not a call for all the vigilantes of the world to unite. Instead, this is how the modern civic societies were born, the ones that count centuries, decades, or only a few years in their history as independent states.

4. Let me turn to the argument that modern age presents unique threats not encountered before. Please explain to me how old-fashioned warrantless mail intercepts dating centuries back are any different from warrantless e-mail intercepts of today. Or how death by sword and famine is any better than that of a nuke blast, not to get too gory with details. It seems to me at every age people were stating exactly that very same maxim and, indeed, in some ages long gone the threats were much more dire than anything that we can possibly face. (Especially "we" in the US/EU-kind "developed world.") It is precisely the determination to protect the principle over the privilege that allowed the civic societies to neutralize and destroy the threats, to address the causes of threats, and to convert possible threats into opportunities.

5. Even if the philosophical arguments in favor of privacy are dismissed, the empirical analysis shows that "temporary", "limited", and any suchlike infractions against individual rights inevitably lead to either authoritarian or totalitarian regimes. Popular complacency is the agent of such change. Gestapo and KGB had the mission of providing security by means of "temporary" harsh measures. If you think that I am exaggerating, look up the history of Nazi concentration camps or Soviet GULag. The problem with "temporary" and "limited" is that they are never enough. Once you achieve the first temporary objective, you immediately have the reason to move on to the next, until you get to the point where Orwell's nightmares become the fact of life. To the best of my knowledge, there were no terrorists in the Nazi Germany. Is that the goal? This is not to accuse any of the active political figures and government leaders of any wrongdoing. It's more of a systemic issue. As Mr. Barr noted, cutting corners is not a substitute for good police work. It's not only dangerous, but also wasteful.

6. Mr. Livingston acknowledges the opinion that changing the way of life in civic societies to impose stricter controls and to infringe on individual rights in response to terrorist threats is the way to hand the victory to terrorists. Than Mr. Livingston seems to dismiss this opinion on the grounds that most people would likely accept such infringements. The current vote in this debate proves that rather few people would allow such a violation of their rights. I sincerely hope this vote is representative of the larger audience, too.

* I'll be glad to provide the sources of quotations, if they are hard to identify or find, and if anybody asks.

Armando Guerra wrote:

Hmmm, I may be bringing up the exception to the rule here, but you do not need technology advances to make surveillance thorough and pervasive. Look at the example of Cuba, total erosion of the individual privacy without investing a dime in high-tech cameras, ultra-modern face-recognition software, etc. Just create a neighborhood watch committee in every block and the result is complete loss of your private life and more things that are unrelated to the topic -like feeling the pressure to go to vote thus yielding an "amazing" 98% of people "voting" during January's elections. One must admit, though, that Cuba feels relatively safe in terms of normal crime. Terrorists are not headed to the island. Nor are they heading to the world FROM the island as the US government claims.

whafrog wrote:

Being on the same side as someone who quotes Ayn Rand in a positive light is disconcerting, but so be it. Little has changed from the past, only our increased collective comfort, and fear of losing it. Neil Livingstone tries to make his case, but this quote works against him: "Our Constitution clearly protects us from egregious violations of our rights and I fully embrace appropriate measures to ensure that government does not abuse its power." There is the rub: at this point, I do not trust our government to police itself adequately and ensure it does not abuse its power. The Bush administration has been abusing its power consistently for the past several years, and no one in the rotting system has the wherewithal to do anything about it. The actions of this administration prove Livingstone wrong.

seiranzcc1UID：2514067

Comments from the floor

Dark Star wrote:

Security in the modern age is a zero sum game. Security wins only when privacy loses. As such, this proposition is undeniably correct, unless our understanding of individual privacy has changed.

Take, for instance, the potential extensions to the Foreign Intelligence Security Act. They allow for blanket intercepts of phone and internet data. There is no question that intercepts without warrants infringes on individual privacy and civil liberties.

Twenty years ago, if the United States government signaled conspicuous intent to intercept phone conversations, there would have been an overwhelming outcry. In the same situation today, that outcry has been largely muted.

I suggest that is because our understanding of individual privacy is changing. I fortify that point by noting the evolution of web-based personal blogs, diaries, and photo albums-Facebook and MySpace-have clearly eroded our construct of privacy. People provide a tremendous amount of personal information online today.

If that trend continues in its current direction, it may be that in another twenty years we will have a much more narrow understanding of what individual privacy is. This would mean that we, not security measures, have eroded individual privacy of yesterday.

Timpatient wrote:

Mr Livingstone's statement takes the approach that because a new threat has emerged, any steps deemed necessary by the authorities are for our own good and must be accepted. How can that possibly be right?

It is clear that some privacy must be sacrificed to gain security; the crucial step is realising that it is a trade-off between the two, and any reduction in privacy must be compensated for by an actual improvement in security. It is not sufficient to implement programmes just to be seen to be taking action.

Stefanum wrote:

For the record however, my instinct would go something like this:

Individual liberties must be protected, and until the constitutional amendments that include the bill of rights are repealed constitutionally they must be respected. This means free speech, right to not quarter soldiers, right to bear arms, no illegal search and seizure, due process, etc...

Privacy is not one of those, but goes hand in hand with search and seizure. Thus an analysis of search and seizure is necessary to decide whether privacy is a civil liberty or not. There have been innumerable law review articles and commentaries and court decisions written on this subject so I will not delve into the mass of them here. However, I will say that in my opinion, privacy is the inverse opposite of a legal search and seizure.

What I mean by that is that privacy, in our minds, is defined as what is not allowed by the 4th amendment. And as such is the fruits of the liberty from illegal searches and seizures. It is not a liberty in and of itself. In this day and age what constitutes a legal search and seizure is being litigated vigorously every day and it is natural for this to change. For example, is the Google server that stores your search histories ok to search? Is your discarded medical waste, after an operation ok? These things really have nothing to do with terrorism though. They have to do with the updating of the 4th amendment for modern technologies. For example, Police can use the naked eye and do fly overs, but Infra-red requires a search warrant. Since terrorists are criminals, the same law should apply to them as it applies to all criminals.

As for security in the modern age, I would rather have a vigorous armed forces and a government willing to invade foreign countries to eliminate security threats than a watering down of the 4th amendment.

【麻木地看了那么多观点，突然有人跳出来，分析privacy and liberty，给出一个很明确的阐述，感觉十分清晰。不管论点如何，当阐述观点时，很多有着千丝万缕联系的点会在行文时出现，很可能自己写文章到后面就偏了；虽然ARG写的还不多，但是概念界限模糊这种问题，应该会是很能诱导人的】

Stefanum wrote:

I reserve the right to vote at a later time because it seems that people are conflating civil liberties with the "right" to privacy. If this argument is about civil liberties, then they cannot and should not be abridged for the sake of security. 【概念的模糊是经常容易出的问题，不论是破题还是写文章，明确概念帮助我们主题更为突出，观点更为明确】But if this is a question of privacy, something separate and apart from an illegal search or seizure, then I think it can be abridged for the sake of security. Or are the CON commentators making a third argument: that the right to privacy is enmeshed in the 4th amendment?

But until this distinction is cleared up, there seems to be an unhealthy ambiguity about this debate.

m ilci wrote:

Would it be worthwhile to open a debate on whether Terrorism as a way of imposing extremist religious views on Western Society is real serious threat? Terrorists can cause damage and kill people as they proved in New York, Madrid and London. But their threat is not comparable to that of the Nazis or the Soviets. It is infinitely smaller to the Society at large. Unless they get their hands on atom bombs or biological weapons they can do some damage. Tornados or earthquakes can also do it and we dont spend half a trillion Dollars a year to defend ourselves.

Dan Martin wrote:

The threats of today, the threats that require this "global war on terror," is simply unpredictable. Just because it is unpredictable does not mean that everyone is suspect. I must agree with Mr. Barr, catching criminals requires sound police work and investigating using the cornerstones of the American legal system, probable cause and overcoming reasonable doubt. There is a reason why these principles are cornerstones of the legal system. They are to prevent policeman from shirking and simply rounding up the usual suspects. To deny privacy in the name of security allows the legal system to do just that: shirk their duties as law enforcement officers. Put simply, I believe America is the greatest country because it is (or was) the most free country. The more freedom that is eroded from our way of life makes America that much worse off. It is a slippery slope that I hope we don't fall all the way down.

world citizen
wrote:

A question was raised regarding whom to watch. Security personnel will cite searching the citizenry for sleeper cells or some such bunk. China limits freedom because it is a fundamental threat to the survival of the government. I question if the same argument is being used in the West's controls on freedom. An abusive government intrudes on its populace to eliminate dissent before it occurs publicly. I wonder if our governments fear the citizenry so much that they are generally seen as the enemy and therefore freed from certain rights such as freedom of expression (we cannot say certain things anymore), freedom of movement (it was argued that transportation is a priviledge not a right), freedom of privacy and personal possessions (some wish to invade our computers with only a hint of impropriety if at all) and most recently freedom of thought (there are programs being developed to "read" emotions, to eventually read minds and more perversely, to alter minds).
We are in a daunting age where government is all powerful and invasive in a form never before possible. Government is imposing its will on the populace much as it was done several centuries before. There are no revolutionaries or freedom fighters or visionaries, all are enemies of "the state" or terrorists. Terrorists are those who search for terror by harming innocents. However, there are some who do not wish to harm anyone, yet are seen as threats nonetheless due to their ideas. The second amendment of the American Constitution gives us the "right to bear arms" in defense of our country. These defenders were the minutemen who were farmers rising up against an oppressive regime. An army of individuals, a militia. In today's dogma those same patriots would be considered traitors (as they were considered then by the monarchy), tried and imprisoned. Have we come so far that we have come full circle? Can we have progress or shall we forever be tied to ancient power struggles (i.e. man vs government)? Note I said man vs government, not man vs society. Society has already eliminated any semblance of freedom or privacy, but we have little control over that. Our question here is regarding government vs the rights of its citizenry.

world citizen wrote:

Ubiquitous cameras are of no immediate consequence to most people because they do not fear the watchers. In 1984 the book with the same title was a focus of attention. Most who read the book were apalled at the level of control which the central government held over its citizenry. Today we are nearly under the same level of indirect control and most do not even perceive their lack of freedom. When a regime takes over that goes contrary to public will that control will be perceived, but it will be too late to do anything about it. Once a freedom is lost, it is nearly impossible to regain, it becomes the status quo.
To cherish security over freedom is short-sighted. There will always be new threats and there will be continuously fewer freedoms, which should we uphold? Freedom, a universal right upon which America was founded.

muratk wrote:

As the current research on privacy preserving technologies indicates majority of the tasks required for security can be done without violating privacy. Therefore, we could achieve better security without violating privacy.

world citizen wrote:

Security from the masses requires knowledge about the masses which limits their privacy. This elimination of privacy and therefore individual freedom leads to mass discontent which increases instability and therefore decreases security.
Society must have freedoms or else return to dictatorial or autocratic rule. Since, as a society, we have established freedom as a unifying principle, we cannot, in the name of security, erode the very principle unifying us. The question then remains, security for whom? For endentured servants there will be security but no privacy or liberty or freedom. For those independent thinkers, there will be no umbrella of security because the offending party will be those "ensuring" freedom for the endentured masses.
Either we cherish liberty, democracy and freedom, or we accept being soulless servants to a global regime of security forces. This used to be the west versus the "second" or communist world. Now the "first" world has taken up the mantra we fuoght against so vehemently for over 50 years, "we cannot trust the citizens".

seiranzcc1UID：2514067

Christos GR wrote:

Here on planet Earth 50% of the people break, consume things and 50% fix, produce things. If some of us break the social code through crime, terror etc someone has to fix it. It is us who create the need for security. Imagine a society with today's criminality with no security at all. Can you? or Would you vote for it?
Until the day perfect societies arise security will exist and in some way will mess with our privacy. Sad but true.
If we don't want erosion of our privacy we have to change our minds and our societies.
It's just the way it goes

meadmaker wrote:

Freedom is a meaningless concept unless qualified. freedom from what?
Freedom to do what? Freedom to be what?
Robinson Crusoe thought he was free to do what he liked while he thought he was alone on his island, but was immediately constrained when he found there were other occupants. We inhabit an island with millions of other inhabitants and it is inconceivable that this could lead to unlimited behaviour. Achieving a natural balance seems to be the answer and the degree of freedom should never be considered as unchangeable but should change with circumstances.
The vote is therefore an emphatic PRO for the motion.never be

penfriend wrote:

It is generally accepted that in time of war, when the nations very existence is at stake, that restrictions on privacy are warranted. Historically, people have generally trusted their governments not to abuse that power. This is no longer the case. There is today no war to justify intrusive security measures. The so-called "war on terror" is noy a war, and the terrorist threat is exaggerated and is not an existential threat to the nation. It is the security-police-intelligence-military establishment today which is calling for increased powers to override privacy rights. It has always been thus. These people cannot be trusted to either assess objectively the requirement or to use such expanded powers wisely. They always want more.

PostColonialTech wrote:

I should have read Neil Shrubak's thoughtful post more fully before responding, so that I could have offered him credit for bringing up the issue first... there is no difference between opening all postal mail and scanning emails if both are done without probable cause. There is no difference between government interception of a conversation between friends (or spouses) in a kitchen and a similar mobile phone conversation if both are recorded/monitored without probable cause.

Yes, the world has changed. But no, human rights and human dignity should not be lessened because of that.

posted on 08/02/2008 21:02:23 pm Recommended (0) Report abuse

PostColonialTech wrote:

I keep reading, and finally, as I read Mr. Livingstone's rebuttal, it occurred to me what was really wrong about his thinking - in terms of rights he is stuck deeply in the mid-20th Century. I'll quote the long blog entry I did regarding this...
http://speedchange.blogspot.com/2008/02/medium-is-not-message.html

"Neil Livingstone, in arguing this proposition (and the inherent goodness of it) includes this quote in his mid-debate rebuttal, "This includes the use of surveillance cameras, access to major databases, telephone and email intercepts, and various methodologies for authenticating identity." Notice - he does not suggest the widespread opening of mail, nor the use of general listening devices which might - for example - allow the military to (warrantlessly) survey his living room conversations with his wife, though, in truth, terrorist intentions can - and clearly have - been passed through these "more antique" communications systems.

"In other words, Mr. Livingstone is not interested, really, in either privacy or security. What he is worried about is a technological communications grid that he does not (truly) understand.

"Because, let's face it. If I post a blog I have no more expectation of privacy than if I write a letter to the editor or publish a newspaper. But if I send an email or call someone from a non-public location, my expectation should be that it is every bit as private as the "snail mail" letter I send. These are the same forms of communication no matter how different the format is. But neither Mr. Livingstone nor schools nor employers nor the governments of the US or UK understand this."

And this means that for those of us who need alternate technologies, or prefer alternate technologies, Mr. Livingstone is ready to "throw us under a bus" as it seems. That seems not just wrong in terms of rights, but wrong in terms of security, because it makes people inherently less trustful of their government, and inherently less invested in their society.

So very simply Mr. Livingstone: Can the government open your mail without warrant just to look for keywords? Can they listen in your bedroom? If they can't do that, your entire argument falls to pieces.

jwunderl wrote:

In fact, the inverse is true. The protection of civil liberties, and the actual demonstration of the ability of a society to deny the ability of individuals to cause us to abandon our principles is, in the long run, the most effective deterrent to terrorist activity. In the short run, terrorism is rare and anomalous behaviour that can not be determined in advance by data mining or other privacy invasive tools.

There is nothing for it, but hard and dedicated policy work. Put feet on the ground, not cameras in the sky.

Robert Kahn wrote:

There seems to be an exchange between security and freedom, however, there do seem to be ways to make a country slightly more secure without giving up too much freedom - making institutions like customs, the FBI, and the CIA more efficient.

Mediocry wrote:

On the one hand, it is hard to refute that an individual presented with any real-time moral calculus would obviously agree to "some erosion" of their individual privacy if it could guarantee or even potentially improve their security in their being or their private property. If I was told how and why going through my personal records, phone conversations, or linen closet could save my life or others' and I understood the basis for this argument I would not hesitate to undergo such an intrusion. You don't hear too many Israelis complaining about Big Brother, do you? Living in constant danger of seemingly unprovoked, unmitigated terrorist attacks against arbitrary civilian targets sort of makes this argument moot.

On the other hand, I found Mr. Sanderson's comments about the issue extremely useful. Modern security risks require modern security measures, but whenever there is a modern breach of civil liberties, one can also use modern technologies to limit said breach. I think I have to vote Pro with the caveat that government oversight should be in place to insure that all effort is made to slow down any erosions of civil liberties. To some extent, this has been happening in Washington, but more could or should have been done before private telecommunications companies became implicated in warrantless spying on American citizens.

At least the issue is now hotly debated in the halls of Congress and the Economist's online debate series. Proof that lessons are being learned (in real-time) and governments will be evolving to continue preserving the delicate balance of security and civil liberty?

Aeon wrote:

Checks and balances and rule of law are insufficient to protect against unethical human beings willing to misuse the great extent of information available to them - with decisions based upon personal bias and ethics. When our privacy is protected and the information not generally available .... this type of violation can not happen ... as it is now happening every single day of every month. Ever those who want the illusion of security push the line to dangerous positions for the rest of us who long ago accepted that there is no such thing as a risk free life. Once you give ground on privacy on any front, what argument do you retain to stop the erosion? Where does it stop before none is left and we are at the mercy of others who may not have a care for the harm they can cause? We need a return to sanity and protection of rights, not more fantasy from the belief that giving up privacy will grant us security.

Ashish wrote:

Individual rights are welcome, up to a certain extent. Todays threats in Global Terrorism imply that the Government has to listen in ,it needs ears and eyes in all sorts of places. Otherwise, the next 9/11 could happen all too frequently.

Intelligence Agencies all too often do not get credit for doing a good job, which is what they do most of the time-Ideally this should happen within the Checks and Balances that Democractic Institutions promise and are enshrined in the Constitutions of various nations. On the other hand when it is used as a form of oppression it is plain wrong as in the hands of Dictators and Autocratic Regimes which do not have any checks and balances built into their systems.

It would have been interesting to hold this debate immediately after 9/11 or the London Bombings-I am pretty sure there would be many more Pros than are present now.

Neil Shrubak wrote:

AUSSIEDEBATER says that the checks and balances built into democratic institutions will protect us from abuse by the government, and, to wit, implies that the democratic governments are benevolent by nature. It seems to me that one of the main points of opposition, myself included, is that the violation of privacy is in fact a weapon that destroys such checks and balances. If Orwellian scenarios sound too far-fetched, consider the Watergate incident. The perpetrators were motivated by what THEY perceived as the greater good. The public disagreed. The point is that the expedient measures, no matter how noble by design, should not infringe on or go against the fundamental principles of the civic society, if we want to protect and nourish such a society. Talking about a road paved with good intentions...

AussieDebater wrote:

Mr Moderator

It would appear that the concerns of the opposition to this motion are centred around a fear of government misuse of private information, that would appear to imply that the government as a nefarious entity would do an unnamed evil were it to collect information on its citizens. The word 'Orwellian' has been bandied about a lot.

Mr Moderator, the fact is that governments routinely collect personal information from us all the time, as do other entities and individuals in society. What protects us from this information being misused are the checks and balances we have built into our respective societies, be it through a Bill of Rights and a Constitution or centuries of legislation and judicial interpretation. We, the voters and citizens, exercise ultimate control over those who gather this information, and provided we insist on our democratically elected representatives using this information in a just and responsible manner in our interest, we should not fear its being collected.

As such, to the extent that gathering information about potential threats in order to counter them is important to our society, whether such threats originate from terror groups or foreign nation-states, privacy of communication may need to be compromised and our actions may need to be surveilled. As long as we can control our government through our democratic voice, and ensure that this information is used to vouchsafe our democratic freedoms against those who would threaten them, then we should be willing to pay this price.

werwolf9156 wrote:

Are the proponents so sure that an erosion of some of our individual privacy will in itself not lead us to an even unsafer world? Would'nt the terapy so be worse than the illness that such a way of thinking wants to cure?

Suresh1943 wrote:

Depends upon what exactly we mean by individual privacy. A truly free person (leader) has nothing to hide and is not afraid for his/her movements to be tracked, or his/her true wealth to be know, including how he/she acquired it.

dfort63 wrote:

The role of government is to protect our freedoms, not to curtail them. As the old saying goes, excrement starts to taste good if you eat it long enough.

gerhard d wrote:

Remember the good old days of the KGB or the Stazi,how much important information did they compile for the safety of their people.All you need to do is to read about the ever growing 'no fly list'to know that we can't trust the government with to much information.

seiranzcc1UID：2514067

Neil Shrubak wrote:

The problem of definitions seems to be an ongoing challenge in every debate in the Economist series, this one being no exception. As the debate goes on, the comments start wandering round and about a lot. JNOV states that defining privacy in general terms is a moot point, because privacy is, by definition, a personal thing. First of all, any concept, no matter what its application may be, can be discussed in general terms without dropping the conversation level to the exchange of anecdotes from all over the world.

Having argued a lot with POSTCOLONIALTECH before, I especially value our agreement on the issue of this debate and, naturally, his nice comments about one of my posts. This is why it disappoints me very much to see references to current political figures and government officials in one of his recent posts. I am afraid that this will open the flood gates, and we'll have problems seeking for a single debate post in a dozen political statements. And this venue is quite prone to irrelevant comments as it is.

Earlier in this debate, I wrote how much I hoped that the greater part of this debate would be focused on fundamental issues. Alas, many special cases have come to the fore instead. Some of them are featured more prominently than others, and I wanted to add my two cents as well. (Please do not judge too harshly, if they turn into 20 cents...)

On the issue of special government privileges in times of crisis, as mentioned by MAN FROM MADISON and others. Well, I guess this is why they are special. 【If the government declares martial law, it's either because the country is fighting a foreign enemy (think US in WWII, without going on a tangent there) or the government tries to oppress its people (think Poland in the 1980's). In the first case, the people will support its government and surrender their rights temporarily, until the cause of the martial law is eliminated. 】就是传说中的“自己的例子”，假想合理的情况以说明论点，学习In the second case, the government will be using false security threats to deny the people its rights. This is precisely the issue of this debate. In the absence of a clear and present danger to the very existence of the state, what right does the government have to introduce any super-legal (extra-judicial) measures? My answer is that there is clearly none.

Another common special topic is closed-circuit TV. I'm afraid I will sound a bit like the supporter of Mr. Livingston to begin with, but, please, read on. Government may not monitor the private space without proper judicial endorsement from an independent judiciary, e.g., a search and/or surveillance warrant. The independence of the judiciary is critical in this case. I am not talking about authoritarian or totalitarian regimes with the courts rubber stamping any action of the police, many times post-factum. Thus, the only issue to consider is the CCTV monitoring of public places in civic societies. I would argue that it is a good thing! The government has the right and, indeed, the duty, to police the public sphere to prevent crimes from happening. The CCTV would make such policing more effective without inflating the police force. A person walking down the street should not feel any more threatened by walking in a coverage zone of a CCTV camera that the same person would feel by passing a police officer on the same street. In effect, this is a kin to having a police officer of every corner for the purpose of crime prevention, but without building up a super police force more common to police states with the force suitable for suppression of popular discontent, should it arise...

Now on to the airlines... I hate it as much as the next guy when the minimum-wage high-school drop-out makes me take my shoes off in an airport, but I would either sign up for the biometric ID speed-pass or choose alternative means of transportation, if such searches became really annoying. Why? Because this is an interaction in PUBLIC space. Flying an airplane is NOT a constitutional right, neither is driving an automobile. The former is a purchase of service, the latter is a privilege, and both are regulated by the government due to TECHNICAL safety considerations. One can own as many cars as one's budget would allow, but driving on shared public highways and streets means surrendering your preferences for the sake of common good. None of this compares to a government agent peeping in my bed-room, reading my e-mail, or listening in on my phone conversation.

Also, there were a few mentions of super-levels of privacy, such as medical and financial records, commercial internet usage monitoring, etc. It is not a coincidence that institutions collecting such information, e.g., banks and hospitals, are judged on the basis of their ability to protect it. As far as Google is concerned - disable cookies on your computer, if you don't want Google to know where you are browsing. I believe that these levels are much less important than the fundamental question of inalienable and categorical rights of an individual, but these additional rights can only exist in case that the fundamentals are holding. In that sense, the super-level rights are a buffer zone and any infringement on these rights may serve as warning against potential infringement of much more malevolent nature.

Where's the solution? As the featured participant, Mr. Sanderson, noted, it is better to make communities safer by building up communities, at home and abroad. Indeed, "put shovels and pencils - instead of guns - in the hands of the marginalized." The same argument was echoed by POSTCOLONIALTECH in the context of building communities with engaged and "invested" individuals. (I would disagree with POSTCOLONIALTECH on the attitude of American capitalism towards John Nash and game theory.) To the best of my knowledge, data mining is not held in highest regard in academic community. The reason is that data mining often times indicates the lack of workable hypothesis. This is something that the government should learn from academia. The government resources will be better spent on eliminating the causes of security threats rather than vain attempts to know everything about everybody. Government security agencies all over the world have proven themselves, time an again, incapable of processing the information currently available to them. They are often searching for a needle in a hay stack. Adding more hay is not going to make them any more effective.

Salman N. wrote:

saying about security we must be very carefully.
of cource, the freedom has a border. But there are fundamental human rights which cannot be broken. Never. If we began justify the violation of fundamental rights to achive security, then we must justify hitlers, stalins and saddams, who have killed millions guiltless people to achive sucurity.

Man from Madison wrote:

Privacy and security are both intimately related to --and derivative of--our founding political values. However, the essential political task is, on a practical level, not to ensure life, liberty and happiness as independent values, but to encourage the pragmatic conditions for a balance between all of these goals.
One should appreciate that the conditions of balance will occasionally require some re-definitions and adjustments in the light of contemporary circumstances. In that context politicians will occasionally be compelled, especially in times of crisis, to adjust that balance according to standards of political prudence. Thus, for example, sometimes freedoms have to be checked, such as in cases of legitimate martial law in the aftermath of a natural disaster -- or during the conduct of a war. Thus, no less than Abraham Lincoln was not willing to let a Supreme Court justice apply an impracticable legal standard in time of a war that could have -in his estimation-- detracted substantively from the prosecution of that war. In other contexts it is possible to discern where a policy might have gone too far, to wit, the program of 'Palmer Raids' conducted in the 1920s as a reaction to the perceived threat of Bolshevism. That program was reversed as a result of a public outcry. Indeed, a basic redeeming institutional mechanism is a free public dialogue, most obviously in the press media, which normally will provide an ongoing public scrutiny and subsequent political corrections against such reactionary political measures. More generally, although it is certainly possible to conceive of "going too far" in the contemporary response to international terrorism, the public appears to remain inclined to fault government mainly for not providing sufficient warning (those that were issued by Richard Clark and others were largely ignored by the Bush Administration for the sake of other priorities) -- rather than for exceeding legal boundaries or associated inconveniences, such as associated with counter-terrorism measures at airports (or even with the judicious use of high-tech, data-mining techniques.) In any case I have yet to be convinced that the public's general reliance on a system of institutional checks and balances, such as political elections, congressional oversights and court appeals, to thwart and/or repeal any abuses which might occur is either abjectly naive or exhausted by the current political climate.

PostColonialTech wrote:

As the conversation wanders through everything from politics to disposable razors to disability rights (that one came from me), I think it is important to assess the notion of "security." "Security" to "statists" like Mr. Livingstone, George W. Bush, and Tony Blair, is something only achieved by government direct action. In this schema this is a fight - the government on one side creating security and humans on the other side creating risk. So, of course, neither Mr. Livingstone nor any US Republican (the world's greatest "big government political party since the Soviet Communist Party fell out of favour) can imagine that human rights and freedoms are compatible with security.

But think of it this way. Despite my past as an NYPD police officer and my respect for the police profession, I know that it is not police or security measures which make communities safe. What builds community security is community - an engaged and invested population with a belief that stability is in their best interests. That requires a certain degree of economic comfort (not "wealth" but not a level of deprivation which breaks social bonds). That requires a level of social commitment which links community well-being to individual well-being (see John Nash and "equilibrium" - a concept foreign to American capitalist "true believers"). That requires societal tools in place which support this - from the much maligned "safety net" to education to well-functioning instruments of social communication.

And all of this is true for "National" Security as well. For globally, just as in a neighborhood, there are internal and external threats. "Home grown terrorists" develop just like home grown vandals. Foreign threats arise just as dangers come from across town.

Is there a police function? Of course. But that function works (provably) less well when - through privacy and rights violations - government ("the state") is perceived as "more separate" from humanity and "more intrusive" to privacy and personal rights. The statists - from Bush to Giuliani to Livingstone - will need Stasi (the old DDR Security structure) level resources because they see this as a war against their own citizenry.

Much more efficient, and leading to a much higher level of security - is a government based in its society, trusting that society, and willing to quietly serve that society.

Mr. Livingstone's proposition creates the false security of the terror state. And is emblematic of the unfortunate historical fact that combatants in a battle become more like each other the longer the battle goes on. So the Pro side wants to fight fear with fear, repression with repression, violations of rights with violations of rights.

I wish I could send those voting Pro just a few history books. If they would gather just a bit of knowledge of the human experience they would understand how badly their equation always comes out.

Tony Imbrogno wrote:

Benjamin Franklin was absolutely correct and we mustn't forget his lesson about sacrificing freedom for security, no matter the challenges we may face.

abu ali wrote:

Security? Which security? What has actually been achieved? Strikes me as rather a bogus claim to justify ever more ruthless intrusions by wellmeaning (?) authorities into our private lifes :-(

ErrolB wrote:

Today's call from the Moderator is to discuss the "Grey Matters". The debate is indeed more complex. The qualifyier AussieDebater provides "As long as we can control our government through our democratic voice" is not something many citizens have learnt to rely on for comfort. The central issue with privacy is trust. We entrust our bank with financial details, we would not share elsewhere. We entrust a close friend with information we may not share with a family member. Governments are not homogeneous entities that with uniform constraints or mandates. Ultimately individuals in government will have the power to uphold the trust or betray the trust we have put on them with our private information. These individuals function from day to day with less than perfect personalities, a variety of mandates imposed on them by their bosses, varying measures of zeal to protect their country and a soundly human capacity to justify any action they may or may not take. These are the realities that helped form the old world protections of individual privacy and I see no change to these realities in the modern age that would possibly convince me to give up these protections in favour of the promise of "security". In particular promises from governments following policies blatantly antagonising significant segments of the global community. On balance of probability a government unable to demonstrate the maturity to compromise in its politics is unlikely to recruit to its ranks any individuals worthy of my trust.

jnov wrote:

Debates about privacy, and the lack thereof, are moot when discusses in generalities Privacy by definition is personal. It is very easy for a 'regular' citizen to say "some erosion of privacy is needed to be secure" because the underlying assumption is that it will always be someone else's privacy that will be eroded. That same person would not feel so supportive of that erosion if it meant her emails were being read, her phone tapped by a warrantless wire and her life then inconvenienced because of the information secured through either procedure.
A name is put on the 'suspected terrorist fly list'.【 The name of a 13 year old boy. Why? The parents are not allowed to know why. What can they do to get it removed? Nothing. There is no appeal process and the government is under no obligation to explain anything. So now every time this family flies anywhere, to visit relatives, to have a vacation, for a school trip, this family must go down to the local airline office to book his ticket in person. They can not book any tickets for him online. When going through the airport, he is taken out of the regular security line and his bags are completely unpacked and searched through. Now he is a 15 year old young man. Now his mother starts to worry, what if some security person decides he looks 'suspicious'? What other hassles is this young man to be put through for absolutely no reason? What does this do to his sense of pride in his country? His sense of belonging to his country? How does this unreasonable intrusion color his parents' view of their country and their trust in its government? Does this intrusion make them more or less likely to be good citizens? What about the young man as he grows into a teenager, a young adult, as he is continued to be hassled for no reason, what does this intrusion do to his developing ideas about government, about the establishment, about his role as a cooperative or non-cooperative citizen?】例子比较值得关注
If a country is filled with disgruntled citizens, how secure is that country going to be? It is like the giant old oak tree in the back field. Big, commanding, seemingly immortal yet hollow inside and vulnerable to the strong winds.
No intelligent, thinking American would disagree that there needs to be a balance between individual privacy and the government's need to keep the public safe. But at what cost and where is the line drawn?

jnov wrote:

Upon my first reading of the opening statements by both speakers, I was aghast with Mr. Livingstone's comments. Not because I had not heard it all before, which of course I have. But I was astounded that Mr. Livingstone, someone chosen to represent an open debate of this caliber on this website, would stoop to such childish arguments to support his opinion. "If someone wants to opt out and not be subject to government scrutiny, he or she can forgo airline travel, the use of the telephone and the internet, and even personal identification and credit cards." These kind of statements are childish and silly in any serious debate about this very serious topic.
I certainly hope that Mr. Livingstone's rhetoric raises to the level of intelligent debate that this forum serves.

P. F. Hurt wrote:

Mr. Livingstone wrote of the risks to "our lives and ... infrastructure," and various "Pro" commentators wrote of the survival of our society. Given that survival as a species is not at issue (at least not from "terrorism"), survival of the society matters only to the extent that society embodies values worth protecting. Respect for the individual, for the rights of the individual and for individual privacy have long been recognized as core values that have distinguished the American experiment. If we trench on individual privacy, hence individual liberty, in the name of protecting the society, we undermine our values and our reason to exist as a society.

Whatever the theoretical merits of the debate, in the current context of the "war on terror " the "Pro" argument is empty. The "war on terror" is a political slogan, used by the Bush administration to distract attention from its moral and intellectual bankruptcy and its failures of domestic and foreign policy. It is not a war in any accepted sense of the word. The threat, while real, is amorphous; there is no front, no well-defined enemy, no end and no possible victory. The administration is not committed to fighting terrorism--witness its failure to follow through in Afghanistan, its willingness to weaken relationships with other liberal democracies, and, most appallingly, its willingness to squander American lives and resources in Iraq while cynically citing terrorism. Rather, the administration is committed only to appearing to fight terrorism in pursuit of political power.

Ultimately, we best protect society by founding it on principles and values, and by being a society worthy of respect

Comments from the floor

In God we trust
wrote:

In the 21st century, there is more information available for people to absorb than ever before in history by the largest population that the world has known. The same can be said about the evils of mankind and the power to use destructive force to corrupt the mind and kill the body. The primary struggle must surely be to search for the truth that helps us to understand and live a life that values its sanctity above all else. A lust for power no matter how it is justified will never give way to, or be greater than, the need for love. The timeless example of this truth is alive in the spirit of Jesus Christ, for those who believe or reject Him. As with the sanctity of human life, many will not wish to live in this truth or ever acknowledge it, thus creating the need for vigilance aginst those who wish to destroy it. Anyone who has nothing to hide should not be concerned about this process as long as they have the periodic right to vote against any government that allows its excesses.

Aristarchus wrote:

Without present societal system based on coercion we have never been able to solve even one of our societal problems. And never will be able to do so, as the system seeks to subvert the laws of nature under which we evolved. A political society says there must be ever-increasing laws, until all action is either required or prohibited. And there is no need for further action. If we continue down this road we will first become non-viable as a specie. A point we may be approaching now. Then extinct. Yet all societal problems have a single, simple cause. And thus a solution. If we do not think, and adopt it soon, we will perish as a specie.

seiranzcc1UID：2514067

PostColonialTech wrote:

【Right to the end, Mr. Livingstone creates a "technological divide" not supported by logic or ethics. He still finds it unacceptable for the government to warrantlessly listen in to his conversations at home, but thinks it is fine for the government to do that if he holds the very same conversation via any technology invented since the founding of the United States. In other words, privacy is not established - in Mr. Livingstone's mind - by the type of communication, but by the adoption of ancient technologies.】觉得是分析ARG很有用的方法，有点极端假设的感觉

Don't fly, he says, or use a telephone, or the internet, or, logically, don't walk down the street. The minute you do any of those things Mr. Livingstone is giving away every one of your privacy rights.

This is as unfair, as economically punative, as it is ridiculous from a security standpoint. After all, Mr. Livingstone's point of view would have us believe that no terror or criminality could be planned via in-home conversation or by postal mail - he clearly sees these communications forms as no threat because (to protect his own way of doing things) he is willing to protect those communication formats above others.

The test of a democracy which commands the loyalty of its citizens remains the ability to protect them from threats and invasions foreign and domestic, large and personal. And in the ability to respond to the changing circumstances of its citizens. Mr. Livingstone throws 90% of the population under the thumb of Stasi style internal spying - simply because they need to function in the contemporary economy. That will probably guarantee that the US and UK last about as long as the DDR.

Martin_H wrote:

I have lived as an expatriate in a country ruled by what is considered to be one of the nastiest regimes in the world, privacy is always at risk and one is subject to constant monitoring, one get never used to it, even after those years. An argument now often used to justify introduction of exentsive legislation violating privicy in Europe is that in our "free western world" a person that has nothing to hide has nothing to fear. However, my concern is that no-one controls the controller and there is a general lack of accountability of those that have the right to intrude on my privacy. The difference between the place that I live now any my west European country of birth was the fact that the authorities could not snoop on my without at least some checks and balances, once these are gone (as they are eroding for example in the UK), our countries end up having the same nasty regime. Respect for privicy and accountability underpins our democracies, once eroded our governments become a threat to us, just like the terrorists.

Tim Gatto wrote:

Benjamin Franklin said "That those who will give up liberty for security shall have neither" （重复频率太高了，记下）This is the core element of my belief in this matter. To give the State, any State, control over its people without checks and balances, will mean that the State will eventually move towards total control. In this nation, at this present time, we have already surrendered Habeas Corpus after the passage of The Military Commissions Act of 2006. We have lost Posse Commitatus and the President can use the National Guard of each State as law enforcement over the State Governor's objection. This was done by the Warner Defense Budget (The revamped Insurrection Act). How many liberties are we to surrender for temporary safety? I would rather face terrorists than live in a nation without liberty. I am a proud American, and like other proud Americans, we value our liberty above all else. Those that want to take this liberty are the same people that would bring a police State to America in the interests of "protecting" the American people. This is a far cry from what our founders envisioned and I feel that the government of this country has overstepped its boundaries on more than one occasion. The American people deserve their liberty and their freedom now, just as in any other time in our history. Once liberty has been relinquished , parcel by parcel, we are not the United States anymore.

NighTalon wrote:

The increased exchange of information that the internet and technology facilitates means that injustice will be exposed much more easily, much more quickly, and much more democratically. Consequently, we do not need any sacrifice of privacy to establish security. Furthermore, doing so could allow a political administration to inhibit civil rights, the right to free speech, or the right to vote.

Neil Shrubak wrote:

(To PERTINAX: Many thanks for your comment on my post. I only wish I did not deter you from posting your own opinion, too. I'm sure, you'd have more to say. In any case, there'd be no harm in having two posts annunciating the same opinion. Although, I dare say many other able participants seem to share our point of view.)

gghhgg wrote:

To extend my previous observation: Gathering and connecting large amounts of public data about persons should be monitored and regulated very strictly by law. This is major threat to privacy.

An example: 【walking behind a person for a minute or seeing random word from a letter is no problem. This generally reveals no sensitive information about this person. Following for a day or reading whole letter is spying requiring judges approval or harassment punishable by law. 5 years ago, we were in situation when occassional CCTV camera protected few most dangerous places. This was acceptable. Now thousands of CCTV cameras and automatic linking information follow people for a day in many city centres. 】一直想多整理这些假设，觉得对论证很有用，可以有很强针对性我不是太会找实际的例子~~~学习That all these cameras are in public space doesnt change anything. This is unacceptable. This is violating peoples privacy.

gghhgg wrote:

First, crucial observation. Not even the greatest proponents of security pulled out real benefit like avoided terrorist attack or decreased crimes. Demonic Al-Quaeda fight boils down to no concrete event. Proposed gain to security is non existing or trivial and could be more effectively obtained by other means. Even if one accepts that security is indeed paramount to privacy.

Second, danger to privacy comes in large part from permission to store and connect large amounts of public data, which individually are no danger to privacy. That is, mass of CCTV cameras, credit card and chip card data put together track person daily movement in the city just as well as spy. Privacy is extinct, when avoiding surveillance is so difficult that normal life is impossible. I think Britain and USA already tripped this point.

dhilario wrote:

Mr. Barr made an excellent point: given the endless war on terror that we face, resigning liberties to the government would be permanent. （虽然是个总结。。反正是很好的点）I can only imagine those liberties becoming obsolete as the capabilities of information technology and intelligence gathering improve. Believing that the government will always have the best interests of its citizens during this permanent war on terror is rather naive and would be an gross mistake.

Stefanum wrote:

It seems to me that Privacy does not need to be forfeit to assure security today or in the future. Security to me has two branches.

1.
security from a nasty unwanted death. I think this is best achieved by a strong and adventurous military that will kill those "bad" people before they try to kill me. There is no need at that point to infringe on my privacy, and as I said before since privacy is the leftover from the Constitutional amendments there is no need to remove any amendments. All the action on security happens outside our borders because the borders in the US are porous to open. I also happen to think that is a good thing... but that is for another debate.

2 Security from being mugged or having my Identity stolen or being suicide bombed inside the US. Here I think that the legal framework that has been used to apprehend criminals in the United States should be the model. It can be tweaked, and should be tweaked, but ultimately it works. It prevents blatant abuses of privacy (anyone who thinks the government has more information on them than Google or facebook is dangerously deluded) through a functioning and not corrupt court system. Now, I am all for increasing the protections on illegal searches and seizures, and I am all for expanding the warrant requirement for digital communication. But these things are happening and every day the court system of the US grapples with these problems coming to compromise solutions.

3. security from financial frauds and identity theft. Here private industry must either remove itself from the information collecting and aggregating industry or implement much stronger privacy protection mechanisms. This is where the biggest abuses of "privacy" come from. Corporations have seemingly abdicated the need to protect users privacy in a chase for advertising dollars. The model of this is google and Yahoo - google being the less evil of the two because it actually fought the government's subpoena. But this is quite insidious because we as people and citizens have voluntarily placed all that information into the public sphere. We did it for convenience, we did it to save money, but we did it nonetheless. and if we were willing to give up that level of privacy for convenience, then perhaps it isn't the end of the world if we give it up to the government to help fight local or internaitonal crime.

【definition的重要性，很明显当作者把SECURITY的层次分清之后，逻辑就十分明了，观点也呼之欲出。这里，在写作的时候很值得借鉴，总是抠definition的目的是什么？除了深入理解，在深入的同时，自己的逻辑也清晰了~~学习】

On the other hand, I am still not sure that government's need access to all that "private" information. and if they don't need it, then they shouldn't be given it, because that will simply make them more needy.

Freedom is essentially a balance between being free from the self interest of one's neihbor and being free from the self interest of one's government

Comments from the floor

Will Buck 23 BM&IS Student UK wrote:

I reside in the UK, but many of the issues aired are global in nature.

In my eyes, the breech of human rights represents a line which we should not cross. A floodgate. The problem with any infringement upon our personal privacy is that there is no control over groups (governmental, security agencies or otherwise) agendas, or over future incremental infringements. These problems exist long before individualist (misuse) aspects are taken into account!

To give control of our rights to any group in this way implies trust, a commodity scarce to UK government! (Some may argue that there is a natural resistance to those in power, but I view a much larger problem in UK society).
For example, there was an internet petition against black boxes in cars which broke records for numbers of people signing it in a short period of time. 6 Months later, the police say that they'll track us anyway by number plate through the use of private CCTV cameras!! Societies need greater degrees of transparency across the board; be it for MPs, the police or government officials.

I like to think that all societies, at all levels of development, strive to attain and maintain these rights. Discussions about China and Russia's governments over the past year may go someway to justify my view that these represent positive development? Or at least to align/correlate it with a perspective from western countries?

A controversial view perhaps, but regardless of acts of terrorism, or any other problem we may face, we must maintain these basic rights. Giving up basic human rights of UK and US citizens is one way of allowing terrorists small victories; to negatively affect our lives and draw attention to their cause.

Your basic human rights; those of free speech, privacy, the right to have a family, to exist, etc. are core to human existence. Many of our relatives in recent generations fought and died to protect our freedom, would you give it to a group of people because they say you should?!

This topic has developed from a realist perspective that there is an increased need to tackle problems of national security in an information age. But do not be distracted. This is a core issue, and whilst the initial application may seem justified, you may have no control over future breeches to your human rights.

Salman N. wrote:

I think that saying about freedom we must speak not about CCTV cameras. I think that it would be better to discuss whether government may arrest people without verdict of court in the fight against terrorism or would you like to live in the country where there is a risk to be arrested without court?

MarsJ wrote:

I voted Con. I don't believe you have to sacrifice privacy for security, albeit both are important for man, and for any state to ask their citizens to put one above the other is asking for an inverted morality based on altruism. Privacy can co-exist with security, as long as it is balanced.

dnld_nrmn wrote:

Both agruments present sound logical defenses of their position. And while this may be mostly shades of gray, I feel there is still some black and white left. That being said, I voted Con. Ends do not justify means, if we are secure at the sake of freedom what have we gained? That is not to say governments cannot have reasonable access to information, but it is to say if and when governments intrude into civil liberties those intrusions need to maintained, documented and transparent. In the theoretical world Mr. Barr is more right. In the real world, we have to try and maintain good theories.

PostColonialTech wrote:

Re: Neil Shrubak (below)

Thank you for reinforcing this. We'll disagree a bit on naming names - I think politicians, be they US Republicans or Brit Labourites who become devoted to the state over their citizens should be called on it - but I also agree, in today's climate it can send conversation spinning out of control.

But your point about the CCTV cameras is perfect. They are a simple police function as long as they are confined to public spaces, and as long as those monitoring them have the same community-based discretion that good police officers have (there was a time in The Bronx when we'd knock on steamy car windows in Bronx Park to ensure that "everyone" was there voluntarily - but we didn't take pictures, record names, or otherwise interfere with consensual and discrete activities). When those same cameras are aimed into people's bedrooms (or living rooms) most people (even those on the "Pro" side) would be upset.

So, of course, I'd ask Mr. Livingstone again, what is the difference between a conversation with his wife in their bedroom and a phone conversation with his wife if one of them is in Paris and the other in New York? To me, the conversations are the same, and equally privileged. To Mr. Livingstone they are somehow different because the format has changed. But if eavesdropping on one is ok without a warrant, eavesdropping on the other can easily be construed to be alright as well - as many totalitarian regimes have decided. And that kind of internal espionage breaks the bonds of trust which tie us to our governments.

Mr. Shrubak also correctly demonstrates what data mining is - a wild fishing expedition. The desire for this flows from poor/lazy police work and from poor sources (likely made worse by distrust of a government). As I said earlier, perhaps if the US government opened every letter entering or leaving the US and read it, some criminal event might be uncovered. But that would not only be a colossal waste of time, it would leave citizens feeling violated by their own society. And citizens who feel violated by their own society do not protect it well from threats.

AnexoHotelRialto wrote:

A couple years ago, on a family visit to the United States, I had the opportunity sit through some old super-eight movies that my father had filmed during our summer vacations. I was a young child back in the 1960‘s and seeing the films brought home the profound changes that have taken place in the last 40 years in my country of birth.

For example, gone in modern America are the diving boards at motel swimming pools. Gone too are the almost negligible barriers around the geysers and mud pots at Lassen volcanic national park in California (no modern child or adult could even guess that bubbling mud or steaming hot water might be dangerous). In fact these days we even need warnings that takeaway coffee is hot and might burn us.

All of this means that, at least in America, expectations regarding security and protection from risk have grown substantially since my boyhood. I get the impression as a visitor to my home country that people expect to be warned expressly about doing stupid things” otherwise it is assumed that they are safe.

Now, after 9/11, terrorism has appeared as a new fear in America much more frightening than cracking your skull on a diving board or being boiled alive in a mud pot while on vacation. Since people are already expecting to be protected and warned about even the most trivial daily tasks, I think there is a greater willingness today to sacrifice personal privacy and even liberty in order to be protected from a thing as terrorism.

I‘ve lived in Europe, and most recently in Spain, for the last twenty years. In the aftermath of the Madrid train bombing, little public debate has surfaced about curtailing privacy as a result of the terrorist attack. I would like to think that the main reason is because Spaniards have so recently regained rights that the Franco dictatorship took away. Few (including most politicians) have been willing to sacrifice hard won gains for the sake of the uncertain mirage of security and safety through greater state control.

Salman N. wrote:

Neil Shurab wrote that "In the absence of a clear and present danger to the very existence of the state, what right does the government have to introduce any super-legal (extra-judicial) measures?" Does it mean, that during the danger government can introduse extra-judicial meashures?
Fundamental human rights cannot be broken even during danger.

kanandi14 wrote:

I still insist that Privacy must come first before security.Without
privacy yoou cannot maintain. security.Security means keeping your information for your benefit and the world as a whole.

Pertinax wrote:

It's not often that I read things posted on the internet and can say, without exception, that I entirely endorse the comments of anyone. I am able to say that in the case of the last offering by Neil Shrubak. He basically took the words right out of my mouth. Well said Sir.

seiranzcc1UID：2514067

Pertinax wrote:

There has been much discussion around the topic of rights during this debate. There has even been petty squabbling surrounding the hierarchy of rights. Is the right to privacy of a similar primary importance to the right to life or is it a secondary consideration. I imagine that our much referenced friend Abraham Maslow might be of use to the pedants thus engaged. Clearly, privacy becomes meaningless in the absence of life, but so too can the converse be argued. So perhaps we ought to focus on ascertaining the quality of life people should be allowed to enjoy in the name of security. Tens of thousands of years ago humans agreed to sacrifice a degree of individualism in the interests of security, forming communities and engaging in specialization of roles for the benefit of the collective. It is possible that this debate has been raging for the greater part of all that time. The issue, for me, out of this argument is to what extent should we expect privacy. If you are in a space, either virtual or real, where you can reasonably expect that a casual observer might see or hear you then you have no right to privacy. In my mind this extends to the use of CCTV or any other type of recording device be it in public spaces or open access virtual ones. However, if you want to invade my personal space, enter my home, tap my hard lines, listen or watch me in space where you might need to go out of your way, or employ some kind of invasive technology in order to achieve your purpose, then you must have an immediate, specific and identifiable need to do so. Claiming some non-specific threat from some unidentifiable group who may be about to perpetrate some fiendishly unmentionable act of terror is simply not good enough justification to remove from me the quality of life which I ought to be able to peacefully enjoy. The argument for the proposition is unmistakably Orwellian. Next we‘ll have the nightly 2 minute hate, or are we still calling that current affairs television?

Max S wrote:

The right to privacy is what defines a democracy. If we shed this inalienable right, we will embark on a slope so slippery that we will lose our cherished freedoms.

Hugo07 wrote:

This is probably the toughest question i've had to answer si far in this series of debates. I'd say No to this question because I do not agree to sacrifice an once of liberty that so many people have been fighting for throughout the years. But frankly, can we expect any more security without letting go even a fraction of our individual privacy? I don't think so. It wouldn't be realistic. What about this need of more security. Will it have any direct effect on our quality of life? It depends on where you live. That will also influence everyone's thinking on the question.

Paul G wrote:

Perhaps I am seeing this too semantically. However, I'm not at all sure that either side in this debate has actually been addressing the proposition as stated.

The Pro side appears to have been arguing that Security should take precedence over individual privacy. The Con side, the reverse. Both have been drawing extensively on arguments based on the US Constitution. I find these very interesting but am not sure what they have to do with the Proposition which seems to me to be expressed in terms which are "practical" rather than "philosophic", and which I think is actually silent on which of security and privacy should be the priority.

It seems to be a matter of fairly common agreement that steps to increase security in recent years in many countries have tended to involve "some erosion" (the words of the Proposition) of privacy.（无他，句式推荐）
If indeed this is accepted as a fact, then the only way of countering the Proposition would be to provide some basis for believing that alternative measures to improve security could in fact be taken without that "some erosion". I don't really see that anyone has attempted to do this.

I therefore feel that I have to vote in favor of the motion - though more by default than on the basis of the balance of the arguments.

What the debate has brought into sharp focus for me is the probability that security and privacy are and will remain in tension with one another. Further it seems to me highly unlikely that good outcomes for society will emerge if either is given priority under all circumstances all of the time. The issue for me therefore becomes how best to manage that tension, accepting that trade offs have to be made.

Comments from the floor

GlobeResearcher1 wrote:

Private property is the basis of liberty. You are your own first property.

eastsideNY wrote:

Mr. Livingstone is correct in saying "Airline travel, the use of telephones and access to the internet are not rights..." but neither are they "privileges." Rather, they are commodities, services offered to the public by, in most cases, private entities. The appropriate level of governmental oversight Mr. Livingstone refers to does not excuse blanket intrusion into privacy past a minimal level. Mr. Barr is correct in pointing out the completely circular nature of Mr. Livingstone's argument for obtaining security by removing privacy.

m ilci wrote:

I do subscribe to Mr. Feree's comments. An additional complication that has developed since the 2nd World War is that in general Governments merrit less confidence. To many scandals, too many abuses and it is not a specialty of the US. It is pretty general worldwide. We trust the bureaucracy less and less and the politicians even less.

Alfonso Dizenzo wrote:

We Will Be alright!!!

m ilci wrote:

Some erosion yes. But only within reason. Just as the rules on behaviour in traffick.

m ilci wrote:

There are some 35000 dead on the roads every year. and over a 100.000 injured. Alcohol is responsible for 2/3 of accidents. Should we go back to prohibition? Or should we prohibit driving except by professionals to protect the citizens?
Or should we stay with traffic rules subject to control by the judiciary?
Isnt this problem simiilar to privacy versus security? Rules already exist to restrict our right to security in order to safeguard society.
More important then our security from terrorists and criminals is our right to privacy. This right should not be eroded. Same as our right to come and go freely using vehicles and staying within the rules. Or else face the law.

johnny appleseed wrote:

Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

Maquila
wrote:

All one would need is to study law actually, and pay attention to attorney - client confidentiality stipulations...government...law...hmmm.

Schneier wrote:

This is what I wrote last month on the topic for Wired.com:

If there's a debate that sums up post-9/11 politics, it's security versus privacy. Which is more important? How much privacy are you willing to give up for security? Can we even afford privacy in this age of insecurity? Security versus privacy: It's the battle of the century, or at least its first decade.

In a Jan. 21 New Yorker article, Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell discusses a proposed plan to monitor all -- that's right, all -- internet communications for security purposes, an idea so extreme that the word "Orwellian" feels too mild.

The article (not online) contains this passage:
In order for cyberspace to be policed, internet activity will have to be closely monitored. Ed Giorgio, who is working with McConnell on the plan, said that would mean giving the government the authority to examine the content of any e-mail, file transfer or Web search. "Google has records that could help in a cyber-investigation," he said. Giorgio warned me, "We have a saying in this business: 'Privacy and security are a zero-sum game.'"

I'm sure they have that saying in their business. And it's precisely why, when people in their business are in charge of government, it becomes a police state. If privacy and security really were a zero-sum game, we would have seen mass immigration into the former East Germany and modern-day China. While it's true that police states like those have less street crime, no one argues that their citizens are fundamentally more secure.

We've been told we have to trade off security and privacy so often -- in debates on security versus privacy, writing contests, polls, reasoned essays and political rhetoric -- that most of us don't even question the fundamental dichotomy.

But it's a false one.

Security and privacy are not opposite ends of a seesaw; you don't have to accept less of one to get more of the other. Think of a door lock, a burglar alarm and a tall fence. Think of guns, anti-counterfeiting measures on currency and that dumb liquid ban at airports. Security affects privacy only when it's based on identity, and there are limitations to that sort of approach.

Since 9/11, two -- or maybe three -- things have potentially improved airline security: reinforcing the cockpit doors, passengers realizing they have to fight back and -- possibly -- sky marshals. Everything else -- all the security measures that affect privacy -- is just security theater and a waste of effort.

By the same token, many of the anti-privacy "security" measures we're seeing -- national ID cards, warrantless eavesdropping, massive data mining and so on -- do little to improve, and in some cases harm, security. And government claims of their success are either wrong, or against fake threats.

The debate isn't security versus privacy. It's liberty versus control.

You can see it in comments by government officials: "Privacy no longer can mean anonymity," says Donald Kerr, principal deputy director of national intelligence. "Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information." Did you catch that? You're expected to give up control of your privacy to others, who -- presumably -- get to decide how much of it you deserve. That's what loss of liberty looks like.

It should be no surprise that people choose security over privacy: 51 to 29 percent in a recent poll. Even if you don't subscribe to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it's obvious that security is more important. Security is vital to survival, not just of people but of every living thing. Privacy is unique to humans, but it's a social need. It's vital to personal dignity, to family life, to society -- to what makes us uniquely human -- but not to survival.

If you set up the false dichotomy, of course people will choose security over privacy -- especially if you scare them first. But it's still a false dichotomy. There is no security without privacy. And liberty requires both security and privacy. The famous quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin reads: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." It's also true that those who would give up privacy for security are likely to end up with neither.

You can find the essay, complete with all the links, on either Wired.com or on schneier.com.

Tim Gatto wrote:

Answers From Those Who Have Come Before

These are the times that try men‘s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. (Thomas Paine) At this juncture in time, we must also remember that Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. (Benjamin Franklin). In this land of ours, with all the perils and assaults on our liberty we must understand the nuance of fear. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. (FDR). It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear. (Francis Bacon).

Yet, we watch our government constantly using fear as a weapon against their own people. They try to take our liberty to gives us temporary security. No matter where or what, there are makers, takers, and fakers. (Robert Heinlein). We are lulled into believing that our liberties are being taken away for our own welfare. This is abhorrent. Liberty has never come from government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it. (Woodrow Wilson). Is the relinquishment of the trial by jury and the liberty of the press necessary for your liberty? Will the abandonment of your most sacred rights tend to the security of your liberty? Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings give us that precious jewel, and you may take every thing else! Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. (Patrick Henry) Still, with all the knowledge of our forefathers, and all of their knowledge, we still succumb to fear and tyranny.

The essential core of America is liberty. Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power. (James Madison). Can’t we as a nation see what too much power in the hands of too few has done to our liberties? Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. (George Washington). If George Washington could see this nation now, he wouldn‘t recognize it. We have been completely taken by the Military Industrialist Complex. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. (Dwight D. Eisenhower)

It is not just one political party that has fallen under its influence; it is both major political parties. The people don’t realize that whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America. (Dwight D. Eisenhower) As sure as I live and breathe, I know that whatever carnage we visit on the world will eventually be brought back to this nation is spades. Still a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm for me. (Robert E. Lee) We as Americans have the right and the duty to maintain our liberty. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission. (John F. Kennedy) Surrender and submission, I see it everyday in more and more ways. We only have one nation we can honestly call our own, and that is this nation. To allow ourselves to be intimidated by the people who would curtail our liberty or those that will not give us an honest choice of leaders is a travesty. Sometimes, no matter how difficult the choices are, we are obliged to show the people in power our utter contempt. The secret of Happiness is Freedom and the secret of Freedom, Courage. (Thucydides)

No matter what the personal consequences you may face, the restoration of our liberty and our expectation of privacy should be paramount in all you do. There are only two choices: A police state in which all dissent is suppressed or rigidly controlled; or a society where law is responsive to human needs. If society is to be responsive to human needs, a vast restructuring of our laws is essential. Realization of this need means adults must awaken to the urgency of the young people‘s unrest in other words there must be created an adult unrest against the inequities and injustices in the present system. If the government is in jeopardy, it is not because we are unable to cope with revolutionary situations. Jeopardy means that either the leaders or the people do not realize they have all the tools required to make the revolution come true. The tools and the opportunity exist. Only the moral imagination is missing. (Justice William O Douglas) One must remember; Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate. (Hubert H. Humphrey) We have laws in this country that are prohibiting lawful dissent and Certainly one of the highest duties of the citizen is a scrupulous obedience to the laws of the nation. But it is not the highest duty. (Thomas Jefferson) We find that in our country today; The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western World. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity -- much less dissent. (Gore Vidal) So where is true dissent in the open consciousness of our nation? Is it gone forever? Have we succumbed to fear of our own servants in government? Has the corporate world so thoroughly supplanted the peoples will?

What is the answer? How will we return to a nation that respects liberty? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. (Thomas Jefferson)

That’s the way I see it, with a little help from those that have come before.




From Blog Liberalpro.blogspot.com
Timothy V. Gatto

psylo wrote:

Yes, I agree with Neil Shrubak that a basic point must be the trade-off between the fundamental rights of an individual and the government's need for effective administration of the state.
However I think it is a mistake to narrow it to such an opposition as that between individual privacy and common good (if we want insert security into this category).
This is only one of the artificial separations attached to the notion of privacy, once it had been entangled into the individualistic discourse of natural rights (followed by that of human rights).
Privacy cannot be simply framed into such dichotomies as public vs. private, individual interest vs. common good and so forth. Mr. Livingstone for instance takes for granted the former, contending that when the individual acts in public the concept of privacy can no longer be applied. However, as the European Court too aptly remarked, also in the public sphere there are reasonable expectations of privacy. By relying on a simplistic public/private separation, Mr. Livingstone is indirectly allowing for a total surveillance in the public sphere, as if our privacy could be confined only within our private castle.
Far from being a purely individualistic value, privacy is deeply entrenched with the society. Privacy is, as David Lyon puts it, a social value. It is what allows an individual to engage with others in the public sphere, by granting him the necessary autonomy and intimacy.
Therefore setting privacy against common good is misleading. Privacy is a basic element of a civil society, it is what permits the society to function. In this sense privacy is a common good,
Without privacy in the public sphere we are in the Panopticon, where autonomy is substituted by discipline, where communitarian bounds break down, where the trust on the other decreases, where the possibility of a proper public engagement, which is, from Plato to Habermass, the ground of modern civil society itself, gradually disappears.
To conclude, I voted pro to the poll. This is because some erosion of individual privacy is not only necessary, but it is actually part of contemporary society. Technology cannot be taken with deterministic fashion, neither can be overlooked. Relying on a traditional notion of privacy as the right-to-be-left-alone is not only naive but also deleterious. Privacy is not threatened by technology, it is actually modified by it, since IT deeply affects the process whereby we construct the boundaries between the self and the other, that is, the way in which we continuously rearrange our privacy.
Privacy is not a single thing. We have to accept, for instance, that our right to not be observed in public will be increasingly eroded. On the other hand we cannot renounce to stress a necessity to control how these images will be used, why, when and by whom. Transparency should be a guideline so that to re-establish the due symmetry between observed and observer.
Please, stop proposing us a choice between privacy and security, which only masks the real trade-off at stake, the one between the right of the individual to freely engage with the public life in all its forms (which are not privileges, Mr Livingstone!) and the will of the government to increase his control over them. Once we deconstruct the privacy-security dichotomy in this way, it is much easier to take a solid position within the debate.

seiranzcc1UID：2514067

Comments from the floor

IrrationalMan wrote:

Unless we choose to become a collective society, where individual rights are all subsumed to some authority's definition of the common good, privacy should be compromised for security only to the extent any fundamental human right is not absolute. As social animals, privacy is an essential element of what makes us human, by allowing us to step apart from our fellows when we choose. Otherwise, we are ants.

PostColonialTech wrote:

Alan NC adds a bit of sci-fi into the mix by bringing in "precogs" as in the film Minority Report. Our police deal in "intentions" - ah, yes, and this is the crux, isn't it? If we follow the "Pro" side logic it leads us - quite directly - to the government's right to scan your thoughts and guess about your intentions. So, the student who looks up "terrorist" or the language learner who stumbles on a site of "dangerous" origin or the family that shares emails recounting a vacation in the south of Afghanistan all become legitimate targets.

But here's the question - does this all apply if the government changes hands? What if I come to power, and I and my legislative majority firmly believe that US Republicans have endangered national and global security? (surely this can be logically argued) Can we search through all correspondence surrounding Alan's friends and family hunting for any mention of a Republican vote in the past? Would this action tie Alan more closely to his government or might it make him a less reliable citizen? And if it makes him a less reliable citizen, does it improve security?

There are - no matter what Antonin Scalia says - a few basic - yes "Common" Laws which are the foundations of even the US Constitution. The right to privacy is one. The right to be arrested only for actions - not for thoughts - is another. Without accepting these rights you have a government every bit as stable as say... Belarus, Afghanistan, or Burma.

Alan NC wrote:

In order that we may be safe, we establish laws that all citizens must comply with. To ensure that everyone obeys those laws, we endow policemen (of various sorts) with legal powers to probe into the actions *and intentions* of anyone. To ensure that these rights are not abused, we establish legal constraints on the exercise of those police powers, and we establish oversight mechanisms to ensure that those constraints are properly observed. This constitutes a carefully considered trade-off of personal privacy in order to enhance personal and collective security. The point of balance shifts from time to time, as the threats change; we empower lawmakers to make those judgements; if they get it wrong, we kick them out at election time and substitute someone whose judgement we prefer.
It seems to me that these are timeless truths, in a democracy (and not just in the USA). The current security situation affects the point of balance, and some may argue that we have not yet properly struck that balance. But that is not the proposition in this debate. As stated, it seems to me that the proposition is merely a statement of fundamental truth in a democracy.

Ames P. wrote:

As being a person that has been over seas and seen what can happen in a split second of one‘s life. I see it only necessary that individual privacy be invaded. Just as we have a counsel to deal with many matters with our countries boarders there should be one to coordinate this topic also. It goes back to the saying, "You reap what you sew". If you are going to break laws federal or state you should be prosecuted. It would not only lower the crime rate in the long run but save lives in the short.

kugel lover wrote:

The notion that the forfeiture of a degree of privacy tears at the very fabric of liberal democracy is misguided. It has become obvious that some sacrifices are just worth making. The intelligent observer would note that this does not necessarily mean that all privacy be thrown out the window, only that absolute privacy is not always worth striving for.

developmentseeker wrote:

I'd have desired to read any example on the possibility of having both valuable civilizational goals at the same time. I wonder if there can be any possibility of using modern technology to reduce the trade-off or is it that technology hasn't advanced as much? After all the importance of technology is in the efficient management of multiple and complex components and it seems clear that the privacy-security trade-off is a by-product of a multiplying and ever more complex social interaction.

Cyclist49 wrote:

I agree security cannot be established without some erosion of individual privacy. That is the proposition but it begs the question of what degree of security do we want if our civil liberties are to be infringed? I can take risks with my own personal security to enjoy the freedom of the wilderness. Society must decide/debate where we want to draw the line for our communal security vs. our communal rights such as privacy. The line will be ever moving. We cannot afford to just "get over it" if we are not to continue to have these debates which at least give us a chance of finding an appropriate balance between the right to privacy and the right to security,

Omo Alhaja wrote:

I've read the proposition carefully and I've read the various comments. many of them had me wondering whether we were talking about the same thing and living in the same world. I could only conclude that the Moderator, in setting forth the proposition, was writing with a decidedly mischievous pen. Surely, it is obvious to all that we ALREADY live in a world in which the classic concept of privacy has been eroded to a considerable degree, in many cases by mutual consent. Travel through any airport anywhere in the world to fly to any American or European destination, undertake any online commercial transaction, subscribe to an online journal or magazine, apply for a loan, walk the streets of your average British city centre, arrive at any American international airport wearing a long beard and while waiting for your flight, find a quiet corner, kneel and genuflect in prayer at a certain time of the day in the direction of the Ka'aba in Mecca, go to a stadium to watch a football or soccer game. Do I misunderstand the proposition when I say that all these pretty routine everyday actions require that whoever engages in them must give up some level of his privacy if he is to complete them successfully. The guy with the beard praying in the Islamic way WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY BE ARRESTED AND ASKED TO EXPLAIN PRECISELY WHAT HE THINKS HE'S DOING. This happened to very ordinary people I know in late 2002. Even if this is regarded as an extreme example, can the same be said of the other instances.

I think that the overwhelming vote against the proposition (I'm losing again!! When will I be on the winning side!!!) is fighting a utopian, desperate rearguard action against something that has been with us since the modern computer and the microchip were invented. As far as each of us and all that constitutes our individuality can be reduced to a series of bits, zeroes and ones, it seems pretty obvious to me that so also are we that much less able to say that we are private individuals or that we can retain our privacy.

Maybe I don't understand the proposition...

dheigham wrote:

Total privacy would equal total isolation. Total security would bec equally intolerable: we need to take some risks. I vote for freedom to choose to accept risk and to manage my own degree of privacy.

Mediocry wrote:

I agree with Neil Shrubak's rants about comments and how they tend to veer off the fundamental topic. But I disagree with his stand on the proposition.

In their comments against the proposition, many critics are concerned with dramatic "extra-judicial" types of privacy erosion. I think we can all agree those are bad, and when they're revealed (Watergate, warrantless eavesdropping) the public is rightly outraged and at least an attempt is made to correct the breach and bring the responsible parties to justice (shame on congressional immunities). But "erosion of individual privacy" does not have to come in the form of extra-judicial measures. If a government decides it needs to change law to provide for the guaranteeing of our basic rights (to live is among them), and if that law provides for certain measure that erode privacy (for instance CCTV or warranted eavesdropping or satellite spying), and if a judiciary approves the change, then the argument becomes simpler. Are states and human life in more/different danger in the modern age? Are there new technologies/practices that can be used to mitigate those new dangers or even old ones that were always lurking in the shadows?

I won't argue that previous centuries have not been bloody and menacing. But the modern age does have a few new tricks up its sleeves when it comes to threatening horrors. We have much faster movement in the form of airplanes and rockets. We have weapons that can bring much more widespread destruction in the form of nuclear, chemical and biological devices. And finally, we have sleeper terrorist cells as opposed to large mobilized armies or navies, that can infiltrate our civic society and use the above-mentioned weapons to perpetrate widespread atrocities like never before. Even so, some people might argue that even the Mongols used dead corpses and so biological warfare is not really anything new and the nature of danger has not really evolved much since the 14th century. If this were the case, we could agree at least that the modern age has new technologies that could be used to prevent said danger. If we could have prevented the Black Death by slightly eroding whatever privacy rights people had back in the 14th century, shouldn't we have used it?

PostColonialTech wrote:

I want to send Neil Shrubak's final thoughts to everyone I know. No one has summed up the issue more clearly. I'll just add - as Neil points out and as I said in my very first comment - that very few issues on this planet would find me in full agreement with Bob Barr, but this is a universal thing. And states which disregard privacy rights inevitably collapse as their citizens rise against them.

gligrohs wrote:

It seems to me that Mr. Livingstone is a big fan of these Big Brother TV shows ...

Neil Shrubak wrote:

I contemplated for a long while before publishing this post. The closing argument of the Proposition is a mix of fallacious arguments bringing together pedophiles, credit card transactions, 9/11, calling the Opposition argument a folly, pulp-fiction-cop two-bit logic that honest people should not be afraid to reveal their secrets to police, and a strange argument that the security hawks would not have to implement measures advocated by the Proposition now, if they had implemented them earlier. I would not be so harsh in my statement, if not for the heavy-handed, overly forthcoming, and rather low-brow, context-wise, advice to "get over it." If the Proposition is fond of this sort of a debate approach, is must acquaint itself with a rather common American saying "don't tell me what to do and I won't tell you where to go." This is not important, tough.

What strikes me in this debate is that despite proclaimed differences in opinions on a very wide range of topic, the participants, by a huge margin, rallied in support of the sanctity of the basic human rights. The U.S. anthem's best known words are "the land of the free and the home of the brave," not the safe and secure. The concept of freedom is the unifying force in this debate, bringing together people who would vehemently disagree with each other on every other aspect of their lives. This is how they want to have it. Privacy - the right to create a boundary of one's own possessions, thoughts, feelings, aspirations, simply the right to use one's own name, etc. - is an essential part of freedom as it is perceived in the Western civilization. Taking it away from an individual under the pretext of protecting this individual is called dictatorship. The Bolsheviks had a slogan promising to force the humankind into happiness with an iron fist. Without the benefit of knowing this for a fact, I would still bet that the Nazis, the East German government, the Maoists, et al, had the same attitude. Please keep this sort of happiness away from me. One can be patriotic and, indeed, even militant without descending into fear-mongering, i.e., the use of unidentified potential threats to coerce the people into forgoing its rights.

The Proposition argues that the world has changed and the changes call for a new approach to policing. I disagree. The best sleuth of all times, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, complained to his companion, Dr. Watson, about the uncanny ability of the criminal mastermind, Dr. Moriarti, to use the technology to his advantage. The steam locomotives were one of the examples of such modern technology. The technology will continue to develop. Technological progress is not an excuse to violate the individual rights.

The government shall continue its police functions, including clandestine operations, monitoring of public space, regulation of industries and of social interaction, but there is absolutely nothing in the modern age that would fundamentally differentiate it from the past ages and that would prevent a competent security apparatus from establishing real security in full compliance with the law and without any erosion of privacy and other rights.

Alf Kýre Lefdal wrote:

To Mr. Livingstone: Are there other issues the government maybe should focus more on, if it was protect the life and health of its citizens? What about road accidents? Reducing maximum speed to 35 mph would certainly improve the security of the citizens more than collecting private data and harassing innocents at airports.

dark_anomaly wrote:

The question of 'rights' or 'privileges' is a huge issue that touches on our ability to participate in society. Without privacy, all of our personal information, our activities, our interests, what we post online and where we post it becomes open to all for scrutiny for all time. If a profile is constructed based on all of this information, what does it tell someone about us? Do we fit the terrorist profile? Do we fit some other kind of undesirable profile? Does this mean I don't get to fly? Vote? Drive? What if the information in the profile is incorrect and we have no ability to fix it? Data aggregators and data brokers do this, and sometimes people are unable to get jobs or mortages based on the information in their profile.

Even if the information is completely correct, and you don't have a stellar past, does this mean that you forfeit your right to participate in society? What happens to the notion of social forgiveness? Should a 45 year old be judged on his or her actions when he/she was 14 years old?

Without protecting privacy rights we risk creating a new category of second class citizens.

Regarding security versus privacy, as Schneier, Stefanum, and others point out, it's not one or the other. In some cases you can't have security without privacy, or vice versa. For example, we do our best to keep our financial information private because to expose it to the world would damage not only our privacy, but the security of our financial information as well. We might even end up as victims of identity theft or have our bank accounts emptied by phishers. We don't access our bank accounts at Internet cafes for the same reason: the security is usually bad (sometimes there are keystroke loggers on the machines making typing in a password a security issue). If we access our information anyway, not only is our security compromised, but our privacy as well.

Deborah Pierce
Privacyactivism.org

kanandi14 wrote:

Security without privacy cannot be achieved.I Think privacy must come first before security because those who carry out security, if they don't maintain confidentiality security will be at stake.

seiranzcc1UID：2514067

matt605 wrote:

Barr forgets an important reason why freedom must be first.

If we set aside our freedoms for every terror attack, then when government wants to take our freedoms it will simply permit terrorists to attack us.

Why does Barr overlook this simple idea? Because he is afraid of being called a conspiracy theorist.

Why is conspiracy theorizing so hated? It is hated because the most popular conspiracy theories about 9/11 posit that the planes were empty. This idea flies honest skeptics of the official version directly into the grief of the 9/11 families. Somehow, between the official version and most widely popularized alternative, good, average citizens cannot discuss the possibility that our government let the terrorists attack us.

Either the enemy is the terrorists for attacking us, or the enemy is you for believing the planes were empty. Take your pick, but don't consider that the ojective was always to clamp down and the terror attack was just a means to the end.

Salman N. wrote:

yrguard wrote:
3,000 murdered on 9-11, that is a fact. The stoning of women on Saudy Arabia, is a fact...

But we can add: Quntanamo, sekret prisons, nuclear bombardment of Japon by USA, genocide of Israil against palestinians, women and children, tortures in the prisons of CIA

Mediocry wrote:

How about the fact that the ACLU can't see its day in court to resolve whether wiretapping my phone without warrant was legal or not (see latest on Supreme Court refusal to hear this case)?
I voted Pro, but I don't like the tone of this post-results debate... This is usually when we shake hands and agree to disagree and live to fight another issue on another day!

yrguard wrote:

PostColonialTech wrote:- this is why "facts" as you call them need to left out of a debate like this - they will only be twisted to suit whatever the debater already believes.

And "HOW MANY ANGELS CAN DANCE ON THE POINT OF A NEEDLE"?

3,000 murdered on 9-11, that is a fact. The stoning of women on Saudy Arabia, is a fact. The Madrasas in Pakistan, are facts. The beheadings in Iraq, are facts. The statements of the head of government of Iran against Israel and the United States, are facts. The attacks against innocent people in Great Britain, Indonesia, Spain, Japan, and on and on and on, are facts.

But let us not get bogged down by those little prickly details, "so called facts" are irrelevant and easily distorted. Let us not try to unravel them. Why? Facts are unimportant. Let us worry about the wonderful debate! And that is a fact!

PS. Would you like to know what the Koran says? That is a fact. Would you like to know how many fundamentalist Muslin there are? 250,000,000 approximately at last count. That is a fact. Would you like to know how is Al Quaeda organized? Would you like to know how many attacks have been thwarted in the US alone? How about Al Quaeda funding? About cells in the US? Is liberty suppressed in Iran? those are twisted fact, right? Who cares? the debate must go on!!!

Luhe Soulidvas wrote:

I can now more readly sympathize with Mr Livingstone(*)'s remarks about a frightened man: "Who's going to protect me from my protectors? The famous remark of writer J.Guimaraes Rosa is very much true: To live is very dangerous...

PostColonialTech wrote:

One last thought because I cannot resist yrguard - "Milton Friedman or any of the dedicated professionals at the University of Chicago where consequences are derived from facts alone" - ah, those who can weave arguments justifying everything from torture to murder in pursuit of the "capitalist ideal" that was Gen. Pinochet's Chile. Sorry yrguard - this is why "facts" as you call them need to left out of a debate like this - they will only be twisted to suit whatever the debater already believes. The relevant facts have been laid out - on one side a belief in the essentials of Common Law - on the other a belief that the state has all rights not specifically consigned to individuals. "Facts" won't settle it - after all, if "facts" were used to protect, say, Americans - guns, left-turns in autos, and Whoppers would all be outlawed.

特别把这两个人的这番ARGU弄出来，看看~~~

yrguard wrote:

Mr. Livingston and Mr. Barr argued about "HOW MANY ANGELS CAN DANCE ON THE POINT OF A NEEDLE"

The proposition, bereft of any factual background was debated in a contextual and factual vacuum. No competent facts, figures, evidence or context was available by the promoters or the speakers in support of their side. What a waste! And what is worse. The proposition was approved by the presumably factual Economist online magazine. Any argument under such circumstances is bound to favor the philosophically soft position rather than the pragmatically grounded one that of necessity requires facts to arrive at conclusions.

Certainly this academic entertainment would not have satisfied the likes of Milton Friedman or any of the dedicated professionals at the University of Chicago where consequences are derived from facts alone.

The fault however is not so much the fault of the speakers, but the failure of Economists online, and the structure and limited nature of the debate itself that under the oxford rules of debate appears to limit itself to pointless medieval theologian arguments such as How many angels can dance on the point of a needle.

The debaters were excellent however. From an entertainment perspective I rank them 10 each and declare a tie. I give them a 1 for practical results. Thank you.

开骂了~~~~（纯属娱乐发泄的某只）

Mediocry wrote:

Another great debate.
Thank you Economist, Misseurs Franklin, Livingstone and Barr, and all involved.

tyzhou wrote:

I guess this notion merits a close examination of the city-state called Singapore. Singapore has been renowned for its tight security and super-low crime rate, and its recent slogan "low crime does not mean no crime" will surely elicit some jealous stares from its neighbours. (Hello, Malaysia?)However, Singapore is also famous for its national security laws that some say undermine the individual privacy of its citizen.

pacman118 wrote:

On one hand, the view that this is a conspiracy to gain more personal information is somewhat far-fetched. However, in this new age that we are so deep into, privacy cannot be overshadowed by politics of fear. In fact, it should now become of the utmost importance, and this should be the age to defend an individual's right to privacy pro-actively. By stating that privacy is dead we wave a white flag and we set extremely dangerous precedent. Saying that this is required for the purpose of national security is very flimsy grounds for an argument. This right is an unconditional right and cannot be undermined - not today, not ever.

countryboy wrote:

I'm entering this swim when the tide has obviously gone four to one against me--but here goes.
I would have thought that given the way the proposition is phrased, Mr. Barr would have had an impossible task to convince many responders of the con side of the argument. It would appear to me that individual privacy it is already becoming irrevocably eroded--close to the point of becoming a serious security issue. Our complex and technology-based society has defined an almost infinite variety of "privacy violations" related to the internet. Consequently, we are already on a downward path, so how can we pretend that such an "erosion" is even controllable?

The issue in my mind, therefore, is whether we can develop techniques in times of security stress that permits us to weigh the possible need for privacy degradation (hopefully temporary) against the immediacy and seriousness of the security threat. While our privacy is in danger by the increasing access to our persona, I am not aware that we have ever suffered long-term from actions taken during time of war. The strength of our democracy appears to be able to make corrections after the threat has subsided. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be vigilant about installing checks and balances when we engage is temporary degradations of privacy for urgent reasons. The interment of Japanese citizens during WW II is a horrible case where we didn't exercise prudent checks and balances.

Neil Shrubak wrote:

I did not plan to add any more posts to this debate, but there is a certain trend in the arguments of the proposition supporters that I wanted to address. Doing it quickly means a great degree of generalization, unfortunately.

Privacy is not equivalent to anonymity or solitude. Living in a human society means giving up both most of the times in the course of regular interaction with the society, but without giving up privacy. If the police check your backpack when you are going to attend a soccer match or fly on an airplane, your rights are not infringed upon. You are aware of the rules of admission, so to speak, and you accept them in return for the benefit of admission. Infringements on human rights happen without your knowledge or against your consent in a context that would normally be separated from the public sphere.

As far as the checks and balances are concerned, it is short-sighted to believe that governments are benevolent or that the people can always correct the democratically-elected government after it infringes on human rights by voting such a government out. This is what did NOT happen in the Germany after 1933. The Reichstag burned, the government blamed the Jews and the Communists, introduced temporary security measures, and the rest is history. 60 million deaths were the price of such security. Please, no more.

Sonofliberty wrote:

Bravo, Mr. Barr. We finally have someone who will stand up to the neo-nazis like Livingstone. This individual has made his fortune exploiting people's fears, dealing with Russian mafiosi, and now he wants to bring the poison to America.

Guess what. We have your number, Livingstone. We will do everythin in our power to expose you and your ilk for what you are, neofascists. It is AMAZING how quickly people who label themselves as conservatives fall into the dictator's spell.

But you should know, Livingstone, that there are millions of us who are watching you and when you slip up, as you will, we'll be there to see you in an orange jumpsuit.

yrguard wrote:

Both Mr. Livingston and Mr. Barr appear to be partly right and partly wrong. They both talk about the government as THEY and about us as if we were different from the government. Let me try to clarify my point with an example. During a recent trip to the rain forest of Nicaragua with my wife and my oldest son we camped in some caves in an area where dangerous animals roamed. My son and I took turns by the entrance of the cave while the others slept. The gatekeeper was authorized by the others two to intrude into their privacy and wake them up if any animals approached, further if a snake or if fire ants should get in the cave he was authorized not only to wake us up but to also search our cloth, our bags and in the case of the fire ants he was authorized to apply a special spray to our skin to kill the ants. On the other hand, last summer, we went camping to Castle Rock Lake near Friendship Wisconsin in the good USA. The only protection we had was our dog. No one guarded the camp and neither my son nor I were authorized to intrude into the privacy of the others to wake us up or to spray our bodies, or search our belongings since we did not consider it necessary. This simple example I believe contains a lesson. First whoever guarded the entrance to our camp was selected by us he was one of us. At no time did we argue that he should not wake the others or that he should not spray against the ants because it would be an invasion of our privacy while we were in the rain forest. In this case our safety took priority over our privacy. On the other hand during our camping at Castle Rock Lake in Wisconsin, we certainly did not expect our son to spray us against any ants nor to come barging into our tent to search our packs. In Castle Rock Lake there are no dangerous animals, snakes nor killer ants. Thus, Pragmatism informed us. Our privacy took priority over our Security at Castle Rock Lake. Our inherent constitutionally protected privacy rights took second place in the rain forest. The same constitutionally protected privacy right were paramount in the civilized environment of Castle Rock Lake in Wisconsin. Thus, is terrorism a threat like the animals, the snakes and the fire ants of the rain forest? and should we authorize the gate keeper (the government) to protect us to the point of encroaching on our privacy? or are we safe enough that all we need is our trusted dog (the government) like at Castle Rock Lake in Wisconsin and complaint about the unnecessary intrusion on our privacy? As you can see I am very pragmatic in the rain forest and very civilized and ideologue in the relative safety of Castle Rock Lake. Of course since the government is US we are in control. So gentlement I do not believe either party won this debate. Both illustrious speakers are barking off the wrong tree. What we should do is look at the actual facts. If Terrorism is like the rain forest analogy then Mr. Livingston maybe right. If the situation is like at Castle Rock Lake then Mr. Barr may be right. So gentlement enough of abstract philosophical arguments. I CANNOT VOTE NEITHER PRO NOR CON BECAUSE THIS DEBATE IS PURELY ACADEMIC. I need to know the facts before I make my decision. Signed: FREE-MAN.

这个ARG推荐，analogya的完美使用，后面那个和这个差不多，总之，学习了~~

seiranzcc1UID：2514067

Comments from the floor

yrguard wrote:

Mediocry....You reply implies that "somehow" in my analysis Art. III of the United States Constitution somehow handicaps the Supreme Court?? My guess is that you have somehow discovered an error in the constitution! Remarkable!

Forgive my presumption in maintaining, as the Supreme Court itself maintains, that what you call handicap is the essence of the separation of power. Without Art III of the Constitution there would be no United States of America only the new Islamic Republic of the United States of America.

Sorry, that somehow my analysis failed to convince you. It is some solace, however, that somehow it convinced the nine Supreme Court justices themselves. Good company wouldn‘t you say?

Meanwhile, I cannot help but to somehow
give up. The power of the "somehow" argument has "somehow" overwhelmed me. It is somehow too powerful!

And, How Many Angels Can Dance On The Point Of A Needle?

Mediocry wrote:

yrguard, somehow in your analysis you conclude we should be more wary of a handicapped judicial branch (it would not even hear the case mentioned due to a weak technicality) than of a war-empowered executive branch which has shown little respect for civil liberties as protected by our nation's long-standing laws.
This is probably a good example of what PostColonitalTech meant by his claim that "[facts] will only be twisted to suit whatever the debater already believes."

yrguard
wrote:

Mediocry, thank you for attempting to correct the facts, (rather than ignoring them).

My comments referred to FISA as currently amended and interpreted by the court, not as written in 1978.

On January 10, 2007 a Judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court enabled the government to conduct electronic surveillance very specifically, surveillance into or out of the United States where there is probable cause to believe that one of the communicants is a member or agent of al Qaeda or an associated terrorist organization “ subject to the approval of the FISA Court.

Prior to January 10, 2007 the NSA conducted warrantless surveillance of persons within the United States incident to the collection of foreign intelligence by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) as part of the war on terror, referred as the terrorist surveillance program. The NSA was authorized by executive order to monitor, without warrants, phone calls, e-mails, text messaging and other communication involving any party believed by the NSA to be outside the U.S., even if the other end of the communication lies within the U.S. The Administration maintained that the authorized intercepts were not domestic but rather "foreign intelligence" integral to the conduct of war and that the warrant requirements of FISA were implicitly superseded by the subsequent passage of the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF).

Also on August 3, 2007, the Senate passed a Republican-sponsored version of FISA S. 1927 The House followed by passing the bill, 227-183 on August 4, 2007. This law, the Protect America Act of 2007, altered the scope of the original 1978 FISA in many ways, including:

1) Notification to the FISA Court of warrantless surveillance within 72 hours of any authorization. The bill also required that "a sealed copy of the certification" be sent which would "remain sealed unless the certification is needed to determine the legality of the acquisition."

2) Monitoring of data related to Americans communicating with foreigners who are the targets of a U.S. terrorism investigation. This data could be monitored only if intelligence officials have a reasonable expectation of learning information relevant to that probe.

The Protect America Act of 2007, expired, by its own terms on February 18, 2008 leaving the original January 10, 2007 order of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in full force and effect.

Currently S. 2248 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2007 and H.R. 3773 Restore Act of 2007 is pending to take the place of the Protect America Act of 2007.

Whether necessary or not, the legality or illegality of the telecommunication case, has not been determined by the courts. (This case is different from the ACLU case). On November 16, 2007, three judges - M. Margaret McKeown, Michael Daly Hawkins, and Harry Pregerson - issued a 27-page ruling that the charity, the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, could not introduce a key piece of evidence in its case because it fell under the government's claim of state secret.

On the other hand, the ACLU v. NSA case was dismissed on July 6, 2007 by the 6TH Circuit Court of Appeals. The court did not rule on the spying program's legality. Instead, declared that the American Civil Liberties Union and the others who brought the case - including academics, lawyers and journalists - did not have the legal standing to sue. On February 19, 2008, the Supreme Court, without comment, turned down an appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union, letting stand the earlier decision dismissing the case. As far as the law is concerned, the FISA order of January 10, 2008 authorizing limited wireless surveillance of foreign agents in U.S. soil whether U.S. citizens or not, where the other party is outside the United States is still in effect.

The reason for the Supreme Court dismissal is not because they failed in their duty, nor is it because they did not have sufficient facts as I pragmatically suggested in my commentary but because not even the Supreme Court can entertain a case where there is no legal standing. Legal standing is required by the case or controversy requirement of the judicial power of Article Three of the United States Constitution § 2, cl.1. As stated there, The Judicial Power shall extend to all Cases . . .[and] to Controversies . The requirement that a plaintiff have standing to sue is a limit on the role of the judiciary and the law of Article III standing is built on the idea of separation of powers. Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 752 (1984).

I would love to hear what the Supreme Court would have to say concerning the legality of the warrantless surveillance issue and the striking of a delicate balance between our security and our privacy. This will require full explanation of all the underlying FACTS vis-à-vis the war on terror.

It must however, be brought by a party who has suffered or imminently will suffer a concrete, actual, imminent, distinct and palpable injury, with a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of, and it must be likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that a favorable court decision will redress the injury.

Neither the Court, nor Congress can change these constitutional requirements, otherwise the Supreme Court would become a super-judiciary, a super-legislature and a super executive a la Ayatola Khommeini, Supreme Leaders and paramount political figures of the new Islamic Republic of the United States of America.

Mediocry wrote:

yrguard, I am generally on your side, but if we're going to stick to facts, then I have to correct a few of the things mentioned:
1) Al Qaeda was founded in 1988, FISA was enacted in 1978 (as you said) so I don't think FISA was enacted with Al Qaeda in mind as you quoted, though FISA was enacted with terrorist organizations in mind.
2) FISA allows for warrantless surveillance of foreigners (non-US citizens or residents). It does not allow for any surveillance of US persons without warrant. That's a major stipulation of the act with regards to its scope and limitations. "If the facts warrant it" (as you say), then government can seek a warrant from the FISA court.
3) The current administration went beyond the scope of FISA and performed surveillance on US persons without warrant through the NSA program and in collaboration with private telecoms companies. This was illegal. It may have been necessary, but it was illegal. That the supreme court has denied the case on the grounds that the ACLU cannot prove that it specifically was the subject of warrantless surveillance seems a bit cheap, though technically valid. (Will not go into new FISA bill passed by Senate and telecoms involvement...)

This should be pursued through normal US oversight mechanisms (checks and balances). The supreme court is one of those mechanisms, so I am not sure why you'd think it's not its place to perform this duty. The court could find (as it has to) that this was illegal and we may still decide as a nation that we should have warrantless wiretapping on US persons and change FISA (in fact, that is what congress did - for overseas communications that may originate or terminate in the US). But to ignore the constitutional breach perpetrated by the administration does not make us safer and definitely erodes our confidence in government's respect for our privacy rights. It leaves us with the precedence of an unchecked executive with powers to invade our privacy illegally. I am not saying privacy trumps security. I just want to see our system work properly as designed, because it's designed that way for a purpose - to avoid any branch of government from overstepping boundaries. Those boundaries (ones defined in our constitution) are just as sacred as our security. Otherwise we would not be sending our soldiers to die in order to protect them. We pledge allegiance to the constitution and not to any specific administration.

:

Mediocry
wrote:
"How about the fact that the ACLU can't see its day in court to resolve whether wiretapping my phone without warrant was legal or not (see latest on Supreme Court refusal to hear this case)? I voted Pro, but I don't like the tone of this post-results debate... This is usually when we shake hands and agree to disagree and live to fight another issue on another day!"

Here is my reply on the subject of warrantless surveillance (forgive the extent but I need to set up what warrantless surveillance we are discussing):

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) authorizes warrantless intercepts where the government "has a reasonable basis to conclude that one party to the communication is a member of al Qaeda, affiliated with al Qaeda, or a member of an organization affiliated with al Qaeda, or working in support of al Qaeda." and that one party to the conversation is "outside of the United States".

Warrantless searches have been authorized in the past (as upheld by the Courts at the Circuit Court level) when the target is a foreign agent residing abroad, a foreign agent residing in the US and a US citizen abroad.

The law (FISA), the FISA court (FISC) and other lower courts have upheld such warrantless searches, but until recently the legality of targeting US persons "acting as agents of a foreign power" and residing in this country has not been decided by the US Supreme Court. Take note that when both the target and the threat are domestic a warrant needs to be obtained, subject to recognized exceptions, and is not an issue for FISA purposes.

On February 18, 2008, however, the Supreme Court of the United States denied an appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union letting stand the decision of the lower court, de facto allowing warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens or legal residents, either acting as agents or reasonably suspected to be acting as agents for such foreign powers, by the National Security Agency (NSA) to monitor, without warrants, phone calls, e-mails, text messaging, and any communication involving any party believed by the NSA to be outside the US, even if the other end of the communication lies within the U.S, where the government "has a reasonable basis to conclude that such party to the communication is a member of al Qaeda, affiliated with al Qaeda, or a member of an organization affiliated with al Qaeda, or working in support of al Qaeda." and that one party to the conversation is "outside of the United States)".

As of this moment that is the law of the land as approved by the legislature, the executive and the courts. The American Civil Liberties Union will have to find better legal basis, or perhaps some way to demonstrate that the NSA is a necessary evil that is worse than our declared global enemies, before the Supreme Court will consider the issue and be persuaded to overrule the lower court.

I FOR ONE CONSIDER THE ABOVE AUTHORIZATION FOR WARRANTLESS SEARCHES AS NECESSARY TO OUR SECURITY AND THE CONSEQUENTIAL INCIDENTAL INTRUSION OF OUR PRIVACY, AS REASONABLE, IF AND ONLY IF THE FACTS WARRANT SUCH AN INTRUSION AND ITS NECESSITY.

If the facts warrant it, pragmatically, I am not willing to risk the lives of my children and grandchildren, regardless of whether the U.S. is to blame or not for the current terrorist attacks (as many of the commentators seem to believe). From my point of view guilt or fault makes no difference as to whether I should protect or not my family, my friends and my society. And I do not concede for one single moment that the intentional murder of innocent people by anyone can be justified in any manner whatsoever.

Unfortunately, as I have pointed out before, some of you maintain that facts are irrelevant in the debate between security and privacy (see PostColonialTech commentary below), others rely on blame as their main argument (see SALMAN N. commentary) and still others will change their opinion because the Supreme Court let stand the decision of the lower court without any comment, as if the decision of the lower court was not known to him or her before he voted in this debate and the lower court was in some undefined way wrong (see Mediocry commentary).

My decision on the proposition herein debated that: "Security in the modern age cannot be established without some erosion of individual privacy" is based on facts that I have researched on my own, but which are not presented in this debate. I maintain, that fact and context are absolutely necessary and that no decision can be made on the absence of real facts.

Let me illustrate why with an example and an analogy:

【During a recent trip to the rain forest of Nicaragua with my wife and my oldest son we camped in some caves in an area where it was known that dangerous hungry black pumas hunted. My son and I took turns by the entrance of the cave while the others slept. The gatekeeper was authorized by the others two to intrude into their privacy and wake them up if any dangerous animals approached, further if a snake or if fire ants should get in the cave the gatekeeper was authorized not only to wake us up but to also search our cloth, our bags and in the case of the fire ants he was authorized to apply a special spray to our skin to kill the ants.

A different situation occurred last summer. We went camping to Castle Rock Lake near Friendship Wisconsin in the good USA. The only protection we had was our dog. No one guarded the camp and neither my son nor I were authorized to intrude into the privacy of the others to wake them up or to spray their bodies, or search their belongings since we did not consider it necessary.】
analogy的使用，说明一个道理并不是总是要找名人经历或者国际大事，类比是很好很形象的方法

This simple example I believe contains a lesson. First whoever guarded the entrance to our camp was selected by us, he was one of us. At no time did we argue that he should not wake the others or that he should not spray against the ants because it would be an invasion of our privacy while we were in the rain forest. In this case our safety took priority over our privacy. On the other hand during our camping at Castle Rock Lake in Wisconsin, we certainly did not expect our son to spray us against any ants nor to come barging into our tent to search our packs. In Castle Rock Lake there are no dangerous black pumas, snakes nor killer ants. (There is lot of deer).

Thus, pragmatism informed us. Our Privacy took priority over our Security at Castle Rock Lake. Our inherent constitutionally protected Privacy took second place to our Security and safety in the rain forest. The same constitutionally protected privacy right was paramount in the relatively civilized environment of Castle Rock Lake in Wisconsin and secondary in the dangerous environment of the rain forest in Nicaragua.

Is terrorism a threat like the hungry pumas, the snakes and the fire ants of the rain forest? And should we authorize the gate keeper (the government) to protect us to the point of encroaching on our privacy? Or are we safe enough that all we need is our trusted dog (the government) like at Castle Rock Lake in Wisconsin and complain about the unnecessary intrusion on our privacy?

As you can see I am very pragmatic in the rain forest and very civilized and ideologue in the relative safety of Castle Rock Lake. Furthermore, since the government is one of US, chosen by us, we are always in control of it. If we don't like it we are free to change it. We don't like the invasion of our privacy but we tolerate it, however there is no question in my mind that there has to be a trade off between security and privacy depending on the facts and the circumstances. I do not see how it can be any other way (some other commentators argue that you can have your cake and eat it, if so I would like to know how)

I maintain that this debate does not provide enough facts to allow a meaningful result or to permit anyone to change their position vis-a-vis security versus privacy. Perhaps that is why the Supreme Court let stand the lower court position. After all, in the absence of facts, would you be willing to strike down the safeguards and allow terrorists to strike us. Is the Supreme Court better qualified than the NSA to provide our national security? Or is the Court better suited to protect the individual against unreasonable and unnecessary encroachments by the authorized representative of the government?

My opinion is based on my own independent factual research and on my love for my children, grandchildren, friends and the welfare of other people in that order. You must do your own research and reach your own conclusion. Thank You.

yrguard wrote:

SALMAN N wrote: But we can add: Quntanamo, sekret prisons, nuclear bombardment of Japon by USA, genocide of Israil against palestinians, women and children, tortures in the prisons of CIA.

You forgot Pearl Harbor, The killing of Christians in Sudan, Fidel Castro, etc, etc, etc. I don't understand how I forgot them. You are right. Now it is clear to me that we need not worry about our security. The USA is not in danger. I am sooo persuaded by your reasoning. Sorry about my mistake!

seiranzcc1UID：2514067

呼。。。。。。。。。。。。终于啊。。。。。
本人能力还不足，做的时候难免有遗漏的东西或者是看的不全面的东西，各位同学欢迎指正。修改、完善！
个人觉得这个东西对政治类积累还是很有用，里面很多论证方法都很值得学习。COMMENTS里黑体和颜色都是亮点，值得一看。
另外还有个问题，COMMENTS上脱色稍微严重了一点，我没有一一改，但是都用黑体标了，还是看得出来的。。。。。