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Why would you think the UK would round up and execute its Muslim citizens? And if nothing like this has any chance of occurring, just finding out who is in cont

Why would you think the UK would round up and execute its Muslim citizens? And if nothing like this has any chance of occurring, just finding out who is in contact with real terrorists and who isn't seems useful, whether they're Muslim terrorists or Breivik. It is of course vitally important that information gathered for this purpose cannot be used for commercial or political ends, which is the hard part (maybe impossible).

pjc50 12y ago
'Terrorist' is fundamentally a political label, so it's not possible to separate the political and security questions.
simonw 12y ago
How do you define a "real terrorist"?
CWuestefeld 12y ago
This comment is misguided, but it doesn't deserve a downvote. It vocalizes the argument coming from the authority, and so it needs to be examined - and we can't do that if we downvote it to invisibility. Taking away a person's privacy is a punishment. You can't do it because it might bear interesting information. That you don't know ahead of time whether that information will be important is no excuse: you can't punish someone unless you know they're guilty. Further, given the shroud of secrecy around the collection of the information, how can we be assured that it's not going to be used for commercial or political ends? Even if you trust the present keepers of these secrets, will the next batch be as clean? Why do you believe that it's so important to gather this information? Is there any real evidence that it's been used in ways that is truly important to our safety (not just for catching drug dealers), and that cannot be accomplished through conventional means? And how can you even know? If the government won't even own up to what they're doing, how can the electorate weigh the factors? Given that the nature of the problem renders democratic action impossible, how can it be tolerated in a democratic state?

pjc50 12y ago

'Terrorist' is fundamentally a political label, so it's not possible to separate the political and security questions.

simonw 12y ago

How do you define a "real terrorist"?

CWuestefeld 12y ago

This comment is misguided, but it doesn't deserve a downvote. It vocalizes the argument coming from the authority, and so it needs to be examined - and we can't do that if we downvote it to invisibility. Taking away a person's privacy is a punishment. You can't do it because it might bear interesting information. That you don't know ahead of time whether that information will be important is no excuse: you can't punish someone unless you know they're guilty. Further, given the shroud of secrecy around the collection of the information, how can we be assured that it's not going to be used for commercial or political ends? Even if you trust the present keepers of these secrets, will the next batch be as clean? Why do you believe that it's so important to gather this information? Is there any real evidence that it's been used in ways that is truly important to our safety (not just for catching drug dealers), and that cannot be accomplished through conventional means? And how can you even know? If the government won't even own up to what they're doing, how can the electorate weigh the factors? Given that the nature of the problem renders democratic action impossible, how can it be tolerated in a democratic state?