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[IP] more on Who they're spying on



Begin forwarded message:

From: L Jean Camp <ljeanc@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: June 9, 2006 1:46:26 PM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Who they're spying on
Reply-To: ljean@xxxxxxxxx

The implicit argument is that we have to give up a free society in
order to defeat terrorists.  You propose that we decide how long we
will give up living in a free society, or perhaps how long we might
live in a surveillance society. Or maybe what percent of freedom we
might give up.

Any post that has as this its implicit assumption is unlikely to find
a detailed argument as a response. The responses did not reject your
call for dialogue, but the premise of that dialogue.

External attacks are a risk to us all. Abuse of power is a risk to us
all. A free society has a different balance of risk than a
surveillance society, not more overall risk.

To put it in the kind of "story line" terms to popular with the media
types such as yourself:

1. If my beloved were kidnapped, I would want anyone who might
possibly be connected to be picked up AND killed  AND tortured to save
the life and suffering of the one I love.

2. I would never want to live in a society where my dearest could be
picked up and tortured on the smallest chance that they might possibly
be connected and know something about someone else's kidnapped
beloved.

3. We cannot have both 1 and 2.

There is no simple  inverse proportional relationship between freedom
and risk, except for that long term protection of civil rights in an
open society makes the most people most safe and most free. You are
asking us to pretend we can have 1) and not 2).
The problem was the nonsense in your question, not the responding dialogue. 

On 6/8/06, David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



Begin forwarded message:

From: h_bray@xxxxxxxxx
Date: June 8, 2006 12:51:52 PM EDT
To: Tom Fairlie <tfairlie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Who they're spying on

Some members of this list seem more eager to engage in bitter
denunciation
of the present administration, than to offer ideas about how best to
reconcile the conflicting interests of freedom and security.

It doesn't make the slightest difference who's in the White House, or
who's
in control of Congress.  Fanatic Islamic terrorists will keep right on
trying to kill us, as they are trying to murder Canadians, Indonesians, 
Frenchmen, Filipinos, Spaniards, Sudanese, Somalis, and pretty much
anyone
else who rejects their vision of the world.  The Clinton era gave us a
series of brutal islamic terror attacks on US interests, including the
first WTC bombing. And when Bush is gone, Muslim fanatics will continue trying to kill Americans. No matter who you vote for, the problem isn't 
going away.  So we'd better think seriously about the best ways to
defend
our country.

We're up against murderers who use sophisticated covert tactics,
designed
to let them hide their activities and intentions until they strike.
They
rely upon the free institutions of liberal societies to help them in
this.
Therefore, many of their activities cannot be prevented by
traditional law
enforcement techniques, which are rightly constrained by rules that set 
firm limits on police power.
Fighting such people, therefore, requires the use of new tactics beyond those normally used by police organizations. Yet these tactics can also 
erode the liberty and privacy rights which we take for granted.  How
do we
strike the right balance?

I'd have thought that a listserv like this one, crammed with serious
thinkers, might address the matter seriously.  If the members believe
that
the current approach is all wrong, they could do us all a lot of good by 
laying out an alternative plan.  I hoped my post would inspire just
such a
discussion.

Guess not.

Hiawatha Bray




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