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Would you mind educating me as to when "we as a society" made the decision to shift away from valuing the privacy of an individual to the point that it is a for

by Bjartr 10y ago

Would you mind educating me as to when "we as a society" made the decision to shift away from valuing the privacy of an individual to the point that it is a foregone conclusion that we should eschew those liberties and implicitly throw away the protections of due process rather than improve and reform the judicial system whose inefficiency is the real bottleneck? Yes, there are tradeoffs to be made, but existing due process, including warrants, is the legal manifestation of those very tradeoffs.

smallnamespace 10y ago
I never posited that, and of course we should not throw away our liberties. I just happen to think that defending your liberties requires a healthy dose of realism about how the police and judicial system actually work. As difficult as that may be to accept, that also requires some level of trust in those institutions and in what the leaders of those institutions say. When police or FBI say that current laws and processes are insufficient to deal with a changed environment and they need help, I've seen that the left tends to demonize them, question their motivations (like of course cops want to set up a surveillance state), and then give a hand-wavy argument that 'well, getting a warrant worked in the past, so it must work fine today'. Basically accusing cops of lying about having problems, or lying about needing new tools and processes. That doesn't seem very fair, and it's certainly not a way to have a constructive discussion. I mean, these two statements are basically the same: 1. You can't any trust climate scientists, because of course all they want is to scare you into giving them more funding and power 2. You can't any trust cops and the intelligence services, because of course all they want is to scare you into giving them more funding and power IMHO both these statements are false. Even though they're imperfect, our cops and intelligence agencies by and large try to do right, and it'd be better to understand challenges from their perspective and come up with innovative, privacy-protecting ideas that work, rather than to blindly accuse them of malice when they suggest something that we disagree with. If you think people are doing things wrong, first try help them do right.
drewmol 10y ago
Specific to American Legislation, and for those who may be unfamiliar: look into the passing of the USA P.A.T.R.I.O.T Act passed shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a bill of over 2000 pages which was rushed through congress in span of a few days from finalization to ratification under the prosumtion of necessity to provide the tools to combat terrorism. It stripped away many powers of the judicial branch to provide oversight, and provisions intended to be 'temporary' have been continually extended by presidents (executive branch) on both sides of the aisle since. (edited: misspelled patriot acronym)

by Bjartr 10y ago

smallnamespace 10y ago

I never posited that, and of course we should not throw away our liberties. I just happen to think that defending your liberties requires a healthy dose of realism about how the police and judicial system actually work. As difficult as that may be to accept, that also requires some level of trust in those institutions and in what the leaders of those institutions say. When police or FBI say that current laws and processes are insufficient to deal with a changed environment and they need help, I've seen that the left tends to demonize them, question their motivations (like of course cops want to set up a surveillance state), and then give a hand-wavy argument that 'well, getting a warrant worked in the past, so it must work fine today'. Basically accusing cops of lying about having problems, or lying about needing new tools and processes. That doesn't seem very fair, and it's certainly not a way to have a constructive discussion. I mean, these two statements are basically the same: 1. You can't any trust climate scientists, because of course all they want is to scare you into giving them more funding and power 2. You can't any trust cops and the intelligence services, because of course all they want is to scare you into giving them more funding and power IMHO both these statements are false. Even though they're imperfect, our cops and intelligence agencies by and large try to do right, and it'd be better to understand challenges from their perspective and come up with innovative, privacy-protecting ideas that work, rather than to blindly accuse them of malice when they suggest something that we disagree with. If you think people are doing things wrong, first try help them do right.

drewmol 10y ago

Specific to American Legislation, and for those who may be unfamiliar: look into the passing of the USA P.A.T.R.I.O.T Act passed shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a bill of over 2000 pages which was rushed through congress in span of a few days from finalization to ratification under the prosumtion of necessity to provide the tools to combat terrorism. It stripped away many powers of the judicial branch to provide oversight, and provisions intended to be 'temporary' have been continually extended by presidents (executive branch) on both sides of the aisle since. (edited: misspelled patriot acronym)