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I originally attempted to leave the downside of privacy invasion unsimplified, and thus different people would have different opinions based on their view of th

by dhimes 11y ago

I originally attempted to leave the downside of privacy invasion unsimplified, and thus different people would have different opinions based on their view of this- in other words start a discussion, not look for a "right" answer that I am pretending to know (because I don't). But this is the way I think about it. Perhaps it's still too hard of a problem, but your second paragraph what I was after. A second, more poignant way of looking at the problem is this (I'll do this one in first person, because it flat-out sucks): My friend just lost his family in a terrorist attack on an airplane. It seems likely (via whatever channels) that the attack could have been averted with more intel that was unavailable due to encryption. My friend knows that I'm against back-doors and government invasion of privacy. What do I tell him in consolation? I think that questions like this allow us to empathize with the people who are responsible for making the decision. (Of course a counter-example is also possible: Ronald Drump has just used warrantless wiretaps to identify all of the Muslim sympathizers and has started rounding them up...)

pdonis 11y ago
> It seems likely (via whatever channels) that the attack could have been averted with more intel that was unavailable due to encryption. If you don't mind answering, why does it seem likely? (You're welcome to answer that you don't want to talk further about the specific incident, or even say which specific incident it was.) I ask because my estimate of the prior probability of this actually being the case is quite low. > My friend knows that I'm against back-doors and government invasion of privacy. What do I tell him in consolation? Being against back-doors and government invasion of privacy doesn't preclude also being against terrorism. (I'm against both.) So you can still tell him that you're sorry he lost his family, and that you hope the people responsible are caught and punished.
- dhimes 11y ago
  In this hypothetical construct, the arrangements for the attack were coordinated via cell phones. We had the ability to be able to control this information but forfeited that ability due to concerns about privacy. When I tell my friend I'm sorry he lost his family and I hope the people responsible are caught and punished, it will beg the retort that the situation could have been prevented. And people like me are the reason this wasn't prevented. The hard part of the question is when you look someone in the eye and tell them that their horrible loss is necessary for a greater ideal. I think a lot of idealistic talk goes away when it gets real. (Especially if you have kids.) And my main point is that I can empathize with a candidate who espouses the "ideal" but when it gets real has misgivings.
  - pdonis 11y ago
    > In this hypothetical construct Oh. I thought you were referring to an actual event. > the arrangements for the attack were coordinated via cell phones. We had the ability to be able to control this information but forfeited that ability due to concerns about privacy. Does your hypothetical take into account the future cost of giving up privacy? See below. > their horrible loss is necessary for a greater ideal No, it's not for an abstract "greater ideal". It's to avoid the highly concrete consequence of even more people dying when the government gets too powerful. The problem is that, in situations like your hypothetical, the worse consequence is still in the future, while the bad consequence of avoiding it is in the present. So people are greatly tempted to convince themselves that the worse consequence won't actually come to pass. That's why I talked about looking at history: in historical scenarios that are similar to your hypothetical, we know not just the shorter term gain of giving the government more power--some particular bad thing got prevented--but the longer term cost--millions of people dying because the government got powerful enough that its screwups were catastrophic.
    - dhimes 11y ago
      So, at the wake for my friend's family you are going to give a history lesson on big bad privacy-invading government; "freedom isn't free" or something. I have a hunch that won't play well. (Yes, the idea that our government will do horrific things down the line is abstract to most people. It's fitting a pattern of past behavior by bad governments to our current scenario. Most people don't actually believe that our government is engaging in world-criminal or war-crime behavior that needs to be stopped. The idea that it will turn on its own citizens is pretty far-fetched to them.) We've probably gone on long enough in this thread, but my feeling is that if you want to get people to fear their government more than the terrorists, you have to make it as personal to them as the fear of terrorism already is. Until somebody can do that well we are all just preaching to the choir here. And in order to have that conversation, we have to be ready to ask the other, uncomfortable one that I've been posing: "What is X such that privacy invasion is acceptable?" One planeload of people per decade? Per year? We can ask it with a slightly different thought experiment. "OK the NSA surveillance data allowed us to thwart 5 plots last year; probably saved 200 lives. Turn it off, it's not worth it in the long run." If we replace 200 by X, what is X such that you, President pdonis, let the NSA program survive? How about President dhimes? President ady_ppp or President jkestner? I'm not asking for answers here, but just to consider this as a very real question faced by people who have to make these decisions, and that a whole lot of people would say X = 0 when it comes time to make that decision. I think Obama might be one of those. NB I'm actually in pretty good agreement with you on the privacy debate, but I think that concrete questions like these need to be discussed.

by dhimes 11y ago

pdonis 11y ago

> It seems likely (via whatever channels) that the attack could have been averted with more intel that was unavailable due to encryption. If you don't mind answering, why does it seem likely? (You're welcome to answer that you don't want to talk further about the specific incident, or even say which specific incident it was.) I ask because my estimate of the prior probability of this actually being the case is quite low. > My friend knows that I'm against back-doors and government invasion of privacy. What do I tell him in consolation? Being against back-doors and government invasion of privacy doesn't preclude also being against terrorism. (I'm against both.) So you can still tell him that you're sorry he lost his family, and that you hope the people responsible are caught and punished.

dhimes 11y ago
In this hypothetical construct, the arrangements for the attack were coordinated via cell phones. We had the ability to be able to control this information but forfeited that ability due to concerns about privacy. When I tell my friend I'm sorry he lost his family and I hope the people responsible are caught and punished, it will beg the retort that the situation could have been prevented. And people like me are the reason this wasn't prevented. The hard part of the question is when you look someone in the eye and tell them that their horrible loss is necessary for a greater ideal. I think a lot of idealistic talk goes away when it gets real. (Especially if you have kids.) And my main point is that I can empathize with a candidate who espouses the "ideal" but when it gets real has misgivings.
- pdonis 11y ago
  > In this hypothetical construct Oh. I thought you were referring to an actual event. > the arrangements for the attack were coordinated via cell phones. We had the ability to be able to control this information but forfeited that ability due to concerns about privacy. Does your hypothetical take into account the future cost of giving up privacy? See below. > their horrible loss is necessary for a greater ideal No, it's not for an abstract "greater ideal". It's to avoid the highly concrete consequence of even more people dying when the government gets too powerful. The problem is that, in situations like your hypothetical, the worse consequence is still in the future, while the bad consequence of avoiding it is in the present. So people are greatly tempted to convince themselves that the worse consequence won't actually come to pass. That's why I talked about looking at history: in historical scenarios that are similar to your hypothetical, we know not just the shorter term gain of giving the government more power--some particular bad thing got prevented--but the longer term cost--millions of people dying because the government got powerful enough that its screwups were catastrophic.
  - dhimes 11y ago
    So, at the wake for my friend's family you are going to give a history lesson on big bad privacy-invading government; "freedom isn't free" or something. I have a hunch that won't play well. (Yes, the idea that our government will do horrific things down the line is abstract to most people. It's fitting a pattern of past behavior by bad governments to our current scenario. Most people don't actually believe that our government is engaging in world-criminal or war-crime behavior that needs to be stopped. The idea that it will turn on its own citizens is pretty far-fetched to them.) We've probably gone on long enough in this thread, but my feeling is that if you want to get people to fear their government more than the terrorists, you have to make it as personal to them as the fear of terrorism already is. Until somebody can do that well we are all just preaching to the choir here. And in order to have that conversation, we have to be ready to ask the other, uncomfortable one that I've been posing: "What is X such that privacy invasion is acceptable?" One planeload of people per decade? Per year? We can ask it with a slightly different thought experiment. "OK the NSA surveillance data allowed us to thwart 5 plots last year; probably saved 200 lives. Turn it off, it's not worth it in the long run." If we replace 200 by X, what is X such that you, President pdonis, let the NSA program survive? How about President dhimes? President ady_ppp or President jkestner? I'm not asking for answers here, but just to consider this as a very real question faced by people who have to make these decisions, and that a whole lot of people would say X = 0 when it comes time to make that decision. I think Obama might be one of those. NB I'm actually in pretty good agreement with you on the privacy debate, but I think that concrete questions like these need to be discussed.