5 ms·

I approve of constitutionally guaranteeing that people can keep their communications secure, but as an American, I think the rhetorical framework surrounding th

I approve of constitutionally guaranteeing that people can keep their communications secure, but as an American, I think the rhetorical framework surrounding the movement could be improved. We need negative rights, not positive ones. People don't have a right to encryption, or a right to a specific computing environment, or really, a right to anything at all. What people do have is a right to be free of government limitations on the freedom of individuals to run whatever software they want on devices they own. When you make something a positive right, that means it's something the government has to give you, and a government that can give you rights can take them away. The American perspective is that people have rights just by virtue of existing, and the state can only illegally and immorality interfere with rights that you always possess, unconditionally, no matter what. IMHO, the right framing isn't that people have a right to encryption, but that the state has no business interfering with the math people do on their own computers.

cblconfederate 5y ago
It's not a matter of positive / negative really, it's not like encryption will be mandatory. The right to not have their encryption backdoored sounds negative enough to me
xxpor 5y ago
>People don't have a right to encryption, or a right to a specific computing environment, or really, a right to anything at all This is an incredibly American libertarianish view, and essentially completely unheard of in Europe. The Europeans frame things in terms of positive rights all the time.
- jeofken 5y ago
  Let’s keep the level higher on HN. The ideas of freedom and universal rights isn’t unheard of in Europe - it originated here, and you’re certainly not speaking for all os us when you claim we accept the idea of “positive rights”.
- quotemstr 5y ago
  Yes, although you can also see the libertarianist approach in also some strains of British thinking. All I'm doing is claiming that the American approach leads, in the end, to greater and more permanent personal liberty. I don't have anything against Europeans or their approach --- I just disagree with them on how to form a basis for limitations on state power.
  - tpush 5y ago
    > All I'm doing is claiming that the American approach leads, in the end, to greater and more permanent personal liberty. Well, that's just it: Europeans would look to America and claim the same for them. (Specifically with emphasis on "in the end".)
  - Jensson 5y ago
    > All I'm doing is claiming that the American approach leads, in the end, to greater and more permanent personal liberty Your life being controlled by huge corporations because the government doesn't stop them from controlling everything doesn't give a lot of people personal liberty.
    - int_19h 5y ago
      Then again, those huge corporations in question exist because the state gives them the ability to incorporate in the first place, and then exerts its monopoly on the use of force to protect their capital as it gets accumulated and concentrated.
- harpersealtako 5y ago
  Well, in this case the difference is between two statements: * The state grants citizens the right to encrypt data * The state cannot infringe upon the right of people to encrypt data. These two statements have important differences. Philosophically, the difference is that in the positive rights model, government is the source of rights, and if the government did not exist, you would not have this right. In the negative rights model, the source of rights is man's natural free will, and the government's declaration of rights is an enumeration of an existing right he already had (and yes, I'm conflating negative and natural rights, I apologize, but the point is still true). It seems pretty obvious that encryption is more accurately a negative right -- if you were the last human on earth, alone in the desert, you would of course have the right to encrypt a message you carve into a stone (who could stop you?). This is in contrast to a positive right like "the right to housing". The "right to housing" is an entitlement that the government promises they are going to provide to all citizens. All citizens, even those who cannot afford or build one on their own, are given a home if they want one. It is further clear when you look at what would happen if these two examples were reversed. If government grants the right to encrypt data, then what would happen if there was no government? Do you suddenly stop being able to do encryption? This would make no sense. Similarly, if you were too weak or lacked the materials to build a house yourself (as the last man alive wandering the desert), nobody would naturally grant it to you. A house does not simply materialize through free will alone. This suggests to me without a doubt that the right to encryption should be considered a negative right (and you should certainly believe this too). The only debate is whether the distinction matters in a practical sense -- this is where the libertarians will probably argue that it does, and I would certainly agree with them, but that argument is a lot more complex and subjective. In this case it's a little easier since the specifics/vagueries of this specific law leaves quite a bit to be desired over the obvious negative rights version of it.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    The main difference is that with positive rights the government will defend your rights from others, while negative rights you are on your own to defend your rights from others. For example, if Google infringes someone's rights to free speech the government can intervene if it was a positive declaration, but with a negative declaration the government doesn't care since it only says that the government can't infringe on that right.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
frankfrankfrank 5y ago
"We need negative rights, not positive ones." That is already the case, however certain players that have an incentive, have actively undermined not just negative rights in general, but they have also been undermining people's ability to understand the topic, let alone support it. Most people don't really understand, especially today, is that the bill of rights does not establish rights at all, it is really a bill of laws that prohibit the government and all subordinate jurisdictions from impeding on right in the enumerated manner. The reason the founders quickly realized they needed the Bill of Rights is because humans are scoundrels and if you don't set hard boundaries, especially the attorneys will start convoluting everything into knots; hence why they felt strong enough to put the scoundrels on a leash regarding certain rights, e.g., free speech, right to keep and bear arms, etc. As it turns out, even those laws making it illegal, prohibiting government from infringing on those specific things, was not enough to keep the scoundrels at bay. They have still twisted us up in knots to the point where people are and do gaslight others by saying things like that basic things like suppressing free speech only applies to the government. Don't worry folks, slavery is only prohibited when the government does it … you are free to enslave.
8note 5y ago
I don't see a distinction? The right to do something is both positive and negative. You have the right to do the thing, and the right to not have the government stop you. Nobody's permission is needed; government or another person The American perspective only assigns enumerated rights to enumerated people. People are assumed to not have rights when the constitution does not apply, or it does not specify the right. The government grants Americans those rights, the people don't have them by virtue of existing. Otherwise, the government could not spy on other countries, since those people would have 4th amendment rights. The same goes for the right to drive, which the government is perfectly allowed to infringe on since it is not specified in the document.
wolverine876 5y ago
> The American perspective is that people have rights just by virtue of existing, and the state can only illegally and immorality interfere with rights that you always possess, unconditionally, no matter what. Universal human rights isn't just American, it's a bedrock of democracies worldwide and of international law. Also, the US doesn't say states "only illegally and immorality interfere", but that their core purpose is to actively protect human rights: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ...

cblconfederate 5y ago

It's not a matter of positive / negative really, it's not like encryption will be mandatory. The right to not have their encryption backdoored sounds negative enough to me

xxpor 5y ago

>People don't have a right to encryption, or a right to a specific computing environment, or really, a right to anything at all This is an incredibly American libertarianish view, and essentially completely unheard of in Europe. The Europeans frame things in terms of positive rights all the time.

jeofken 5y ago
Let’s keep the level higher on HN. The ideas of freedom and universal rights isn’t unheard of in Europe - it originated here, and you’re certainly not speaking for all os us when you claim we accept the idea of “positive rights”.
quotemstr 5y ago
Yes, although you can also see the libertarianist approach in also some strains of British thinking. All I'm doing is claiming that the American approach leads, in the end, to greater and more permanent personal liberty. I don't have anything against Europeans or their approach --- I just disagree with them on how to form a basis for limitations on state power.
- tpush 5y ago
  > All I'm doing is claiming that the American approach leads, in the end, to greater and more permanent personal liberty. Well, that's just it: Europeans would look to America and claim the same for them. (Specifically with emphasis on "in the end".)
- Jensson 5y ago
  > All I'm doing is claiming that the American approach leads, in the end, to greater and more permanent personal liberty Your life being controlled by huge corporations because the government doesn't stop them from controlling everything doesn't give a lot of people personal liberty.
  - int_19h 5y ago
    Then again, those huge corporations in question exist because the state gives them the ability to incorporate in the first place, and then exerts its monopoly on the use of force to protect their capital as it gets accumulated and concentrated.
harpersealtako 5y ago
Well, in this case the difference is between two statements: * The state grants citizens the right to encrypt data * The state cannot infringe upon the right of people to encrypt data. These two statements have important differences. Philosophically, the difference is that in the positive rights model, government is the source of rights, and if the government did not exist, you would not have this right. In the negative rights model, the source of rights is man's natural free will, and the government's declaration of rights is an enumeration of an existing right he already had (and yes, I'm conflating negative and natural rights, I apologize, but the point is still true). It seems pretty obvious that encryption is more accurately a negative right -- if you were the last human on earth, alone in the desert, you would of course have the right to encrypt a message you carve into a stone (who could stop you?). This is in contrast to a positive right like "the right to housing". The "right to housing" is an entitlement that the government promises they are going to provide to all citizens. All citizens, even those who cannot afford or build one on their own, are given a home if they want one. It is further clear when you look at what would happen if these two examples were reversed. If government grants the right to encrypt data, then what would happen if there was no government? Do you suddenly stop being able to do encryption? This would make no sense. Similarly, if you were too weak or lacked the materials to build a house yourself (as the last man alive wandering the desert), nobody would naturally grant it to you. A house does not simply materialize through free will alone. This suggests to me without a doubt that the right to encryption should be considered a negative right (and you should certainly believe this too). The only debate is whether the distinction matters in a practical sense -- this is where the libertarians will probably argue that it does, and I would certainly agree with them, but that argument is a lot more complex and subjective. In this case it's a little easier since the specifics/vagueries of this specific law leaves quite a bit to be desired over the obvious negative rights version of it.
- Jensson 5y ago
  The main difference is that with positive rights the government will defend your rights from others, while negative rights you are on your own to defend your rights from others. For example, if Google infringes someone's rights to free speech the government can intervene if it was a positive declaration, but with a negative declaration the government doesn't care since it only says that the government can't infringe on that right.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

frankfrankfrank 5y ago

"We need negative rights, not positive ones." That is already the case, however certain players that have an incentive, have actively undermined not just negative rights in general, but they have also been undermining people's ability to understand the topic, let alone support it. Most people don't really understand, especially today, is that the bill of rights does not establish rights at all, it is really a bill of laws that prohibit the government and all subordinate jurisdictions from impeding on right in the enumerated manner. The reason the founders quickly realized they needed the Bill of Rights is because humans are scoundrels and if you don't set hard boundaries, especially the attorneys will start convoluting everything into knots; hence why they felt strong enough to put the scoundrels on a leash regarding certain rights, e.g., free speech, right to keep and bear arms, etc. As it turns out, even those laws making it illegal, prohibiting government from infringing on those specific things, was not enough to keep the scoundrels at bay. They have still twisted us up in knots to the point where people are and do gaslight others by saying things like that basic things like suppressing free speech only applies to the government. Don't worry folks, slavery is only prohibited when the government does it … you are free to enslave.

8note 5y ago

I don't see a distinction? The right to do something is both positive and negative. You have the right to do the thing, and the right to not have the government stop you. Nobody's permission is needed; government or another person The American perspective only assigns enumerated rights to enumerated people. People are assumed to not have rights when the constitution does not apply, or it does not specify the right. The government grants Americans those rights, the people don't have them by virtue of existing. Otherwise, the government could not spy on other countries, since those people would have 4th amendment rights. The same goes for the right to drive, which the government is perfectly allowed to infringe on since it is not specified in the document.

wolverine876 5y ago

> The American perspective is that people have rights just by virtue of existing, and the state can only illegally and immorality interfere with rights that you always possess, unconditionally, no matter what. Universal human rights isn't just American, it's a bedrock of democracies worldwide and of international law. Also, the US doesn't say states "only illegally and immorality interfere", but that their core purpose is to actively protect human rights: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ...