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Even that first premise is wrong in any state with the rule of law. Only crimes have to be prosecuted, not "people" or "communications" and prosecution is alway

Even that first premise is wrong in any state with the rule of law. Only crimes have to be prosecuted, not "people" or "communications" and prosecution is always something done "a posteriori." The above must be understood correctly: I am not advocating that one should not investigate possible criminal plans: because planning some kind of crime (like killing someone) with intent is, ipso facto, a crime. It is not PEOPLE that the law applies to. It is CRIMES. We incarcerate people because we do not know a better way to punish them for their crimes, not because we do not want them to be human beings. CRIME-PUNISHMENT, not MAN-JAIL.

Silhouette 11y ago
The trouble with this principle is that there is some damage you simply can't put right retrospectively, and in this case we really are talking about the government agencies whose remit is to try to prevent those things from happening in the first place. They do have a legitimate need to take preemptive actions in some cases, because otherwise people will quite literally die. The useful questions are about how we can help them to do their job and keep people safe from whatever real dangers are out there, but without doing more harm than good. In the case of encrypted communications, I'm not sure that will ever be possible, because the dangers of preventing everyone from communicating privately may far outweigh the danger from otherwise unanticipated acts of terror. The politicians want a middle ground solution where only good people have access to the information, but the technologists understand that no such ideal solution can exist here.
- pfortuny 11y ago
  You are right. But. Suspicion about the existence of a crime (and plotting a crime with intent is by itself a crime) is (given enough evidence) reason enough to investigate. That is what you call "preemtive", I guess. And yes, I am willing to run more risks for the benefit of freedom. Because there are things which are more important than life. And freedom is one of them. By freedom I mean freedom of coertion, in this context.
  - Silhouette 11y ago
    It seems like we agree on the general principles here, but I think you have to be pragmatic about applying them. We all live together in the same society, so we can never have complete freedom and universal rights. If nothing else, sometimes the rights and freedoms we value come into conflict. A classic example is that in general we might want to protect freedom of expression and we might also respect a right to privacy. However, at some point those competing interests are incompatible, and so we have to try to balance them as fairly as we can. Finding that balance is particularly difficult in cases where the damage caused from a violation may be very high but such violations are rare in practice. This is probably true, at least in countries like mine, both of fighting real violent terrorism and of real damage from blanket government surveillance. In both cases, we're also concerned about the potential future harm, not just the actual risk of harm today. Unfortunately, hardly anyone is in a position to realistically assess the risk and make an informed personal judgement about what they think a good balance should be in an ideal world, even before we consider legitimate differences of opinion or the complications of not living in an ideal world.

Silhouette 11y ago

The trouble with this principle is that there is some damage you simply can't put right retrospectively, and in this case we really are talking about the government agencies whose remit is to try to prevent those things from happening in the first place. They do have a legitimate need to take preemptive actions in some cases, because otherwise people will quite literally die. The useful questions are about how we can help them to do their job and keep people safe from whatever real dangers are out there, but without doing more harm than good. In the case of encrypted communications, I'm not sure that will ever be possible, because the dangers of preventing everyone from communicating privately may far outweigh the danger from otherwise unanticipated acts of terror. The politicians want a middle ground solution where only good people have access to the information, but the technologists understand that no such ideal solution can exist here.

pfortuny 11y ago
You are right. But. Suspicion about the existence of a crime (and plotting a crime with intent is by itself a crime) is (given enough evidence) reason enough to investigate. That is what you call "preemtive", I guess. And yes, I am willing to run more risks for the benefit of freedom. Because there are things which are more important than life. And freedom is one of them. By freedom I mean freedom of coertion, in this context.
- Silhouette 11y ago
  It seems like we agree on the general principles here, but I think you have to be pragmatic about applying them. We all live together in the same society, so we can never have complete freedom and universal rights. If nothing else, sometimes the rights and freedoms we value come into conflict. A classic example is that in general we might want to protect freedom of expression and we might also respect a right to privacy. However, at some point those competing interests are incompatible, and so we have to try to balance them as fairly as we can. Finding that balance is particularly difficult in cases where the damage caused from a violation may be very high but such violations are rare in practice. This is probably true, at least in countries like mine, both of fighting real violent terrorism and of real damage from blanket government surveillance. In both cases, we're also concerned about the potential future harm, not just the actual risk of harm today. Unfortunately, hardly anyone is in a position to realistically assess the risk and make an informed personal judgement about what they think a good balance should be in an ideal world, even before we consider legitimate differences of opinion or the complications of not living in an ideal world.