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Framing the conversation as freedom vs safety is dangerous because it ignores the issue of government power. The danger of mass surveillance is not due to some
by dasil003 13y ago
Framing the conversation as freedom vs safety is dangerous because it ignores the issue of government power.
The danger of mass surveillance is not due to some abstract need for privacy, but rather because of the immense power the government has. The founding fathers acutely understood the dangers of government overreach, and the constitution of the USA was designed to keep it in check. However these days, the very principles that the country was founded on are used as a shield to lull the well-fed and entertained population into a false sense of security about the benevolence of the government. Ironically people in oppressive third-world regimes would hold no such illusions, but in the English-speaking world we get "meh, what do I have to hide?". The insidious thing about this is that history's lessons on the subject can not be cited without sounding like a crackpot.
- rhizome 13y agoHowever these days, the very principles that the country was founded on are used as a shield to lull the well-fed and entertained population into a false sense of security about the benevolence of the government. I don't think these principles are used as a shield, I think they have been redefined and given the euphemism of "national security" to hide what the new definitions are, if there even are definitions beyond 'whatever we want to do'.
- dasil003 13y agoGood point, my phrasing was poor. What I meant to say is that the government rhetoric about freedom and American principles is convincing because it is based on actual enlightened thought which makes it all the easier for evil men and well-meaning busybodies and bureaucrats to utterly subvert these principles until they are nothing more than the empty political slogans and propaganda used by totalitarian regimes everywhere.