>That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.
Reminder that mass surveillance is morally fine, unless you can find fault with the above statement.
Hard mode: assume that mass surveillance does prevent harm. It does since dozens of teens in my country (Guatemala) who were planning terrorism were successfully arrested before carrying out their schemes thanks to mass surveillance.
install gentoo
>Assuming mass surveilance prevents harm to others
good joke
easy mode: Assume you live under an oppressive regime that executes dissidents
The execution of dissidents is obviously immoral given the stated principle of harm. But that's a separate issue. On its own mass surveillance is fine.
yea that could be true if there were any government that was able to protect its data and had that same libertarian view with their laws. you're premise is fucked.
I can find fault with it; the statement blankets innocent people along with the guilty. the last part of the phrase should read:
"is to prevent him from contributing, knowingly or unknowingly, to the harm of others."
In that light, there's nothing wrong with surveillance itself, just using it on people who have nothing to do with what you're trying to stop. For example, maybe I grew marijuana in my back yard for personal use and sit in front of my computer smoking it. You can see this through my webcam and come arrest me. How did that help prevent any terrorist attacks, and who did you protect?
>Reminder that mass surveillance is morally fine, unless you can find fault with the above statement.
Your statement is that power may only be used to prevent harm to others. I will agree with you. Your conclusion, however, is a reverse implication, that it is always acceptable to do this, as long as you can make a claim that it is preventing harm. This statement deserves a reasonable argument behind it. Just because you may prevent some harm does not mean that you will not cause greater harm in your methods. You may prevent a few terrorist attacks, but you also give an unprecedented level of power to governments, and history is replete with cases of death caused by government abuse, on scales that terrorists can only wish they had.
When the founding fathers drafted the constitution, they did so with the intention of limiting the government. They enumerated the exact powers that each branch of government, limiting them to only specific tasks, and forbidding them from taking actions that could be used to take advantage of the citizenry. One of these restrictions on government activity was the fourth amendment. As a citizen, you have a right to be safe and secure in your own home, and in your papers and effects. In the 21st century, your emails, IMs, and other private electronic communication are considered analogs to this. The only time when the government is allowed to violate this is when there is a reasonable suspicion that you are going to or have committed a crime, and a judge has signed a warrant for search or seizure. This is their clause for preventing harm, and the standard for when the government may begin spying. Until that point, however, if we are to justify surveillance, we are to make a statement about our rights that cannot be taken back -- that our right to property is meaningless and non-existent. Even if used by a completely benevolent leader at first, the power will necessarily be used by future malevolent leaders to oppress the people.
i want methstew to do things to me
>On its own
You seem to be under this strange belief that there can be a perfect government that will not abuse mass surveillance. On the contrary, truly benevolent leaders are a rarity, and they can make no guarantee that their successors will be benevolent as well. The only way to curtail future government abuse is to limit the size, scope and power of government.
See Amendment 9:
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
And Justice Black on Katz v. US.
""The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
The first clause protects "persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures . . . ." These words connote the idea of tangible things with size, form, and weight, things capable of being searched, seized, or both. The second clause of the Amendment still further establishes its Framers' purpose to limit its protection to tangible things by providing that no warrants shall issue but those "particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." A conversation overheard by eavesdropping, whether by plain snooping or wiretapping, is not tangible and, under the normally accepted meanings of the words, can neither be searched nor seized. In addition the language of the second clause indicates that the Amendment refers not only to something tangible so it can be seized but to something already in existence so it can be described. Yet the Court's interpretation would have the Amendment apply to overhearing future conversations which by their very nature are nonexistent until they take place. "
Modifying the state of your physical possessions is not tangible?
Intent is everything. Yes, modification of my physical possessions is tangible, but what is the intent behind it? You think I'm a "terrorist" and want evidence?
Seems awfully similar to something that happened in Salem in about 1692.
The other thought here is that those in power derive said power from the consent of the governed. And in that I think may be truly lost, because too many people blindly believe what they are told.
>On its own mass surveillance is fine.
Yeah, just like dictatorship is fine as long as it's benevolent. That's just not a realistic mindset
...
You have completely missed the point of everything.
The United States would have never been created if everyone believed this
Would you install a government camera in your bathroom?
That feels reductionist. Tools that give the government more power aren't inherently bad, otherwise anarchy would be best, as it would be a government with 0 power. The question is what level of power makes for the best government. You should be arguing that mass surveillance is too much power, since at that point they have the power to overcome certain checks and balances within the government.
What I picked up on was the wording of "A conversation overheard by eavesdropping, whether by plain snooping or wiretapping, is not tangible and, under the normally accepted meanings of the words, can neither be searched nor seized."
Of course you can't really "seize" or "search" sound, you just observe it. It's more a case of infiltration. Monitoring online activity without evidence of intent to act upon malice is not reasonable.
But who am I kidding? These are the same people that claim "piracy" ie. duplicating data is stealing. The problem is that the access has been physically provided. I wonder how much the courts expect a "pirate" to understand about economics before accusing them of "stealing".
The door is open, the access is there, with data/media that tends to be duplicated, it's just that it's easier to read a physical book and lend it to a friend than have them copy the book before reading it. The deterrent used to entirely based around convenience.
They're going to have to change how we access newly-released media, and/or have us manually waive rights whenever accessing the net to make any of this logically consistent, and justify surveillance.
As it stands, it's nonsensical garbage.
Which reminds me of another post This is another part of the problem.
No its not. Dissent harms the unity of a collective.
What about harm to him or herself? For example, the well grounded fears of mobocracy or even the specialized nature of the law and politics in general.
There is no such thing as collective unity in humans.
Dissent doesn't "harm" unity, dissent is the harm towards unity. The value of a collective's unity is also not objective.
Mass surveillance i great, ever since 9/11 we dont see any terrorists attacks thanks to out beloved NSA and all other intelligence agencies collecting more data than ever. We actually see huge drop in terrorism and crime.
Oh wait, we dont
It's too vague.
You have to define how much power, in many levels.
You have to define what are reasonable grounds for believing harm will occur, in many levels.
You have to define a bijective relation between "how much power" and "how much ground for believing in harm".
That is good.
>One of these restrictions on government activity was the fourth amendment. As a citizen, you have a right to be safe and secure in your own home, and in your papers and effects. In the 21st century, your emails, IMs, and other private electronic communication are considered analogs to this. The only time when the government is allowed to violate this is when there is a reasonable suspicion that you are going to or have committed a crime, and a judge has signed a warrant for search or seizure. This is their clause for preventing harm, and the standard for when the government may begin spying
>rightfully
Nice meme. Power is exercised whenever possible, for the benefit of the person exercising it.
Surveillance in itself is harm.
You're supporting harm to prevent harm, which defeats the point.
Why do you suppose a priori that surveillance is harm?
So Snowden posts on Cred Forums right?
Until an unbreakable, autonomous, morally-perfect, totally accurate black-box machine handles acquisition, surveillance, selection, and dissemination of intelligence, and until that machine only reveals the bare minimum, necessary information to the relevant authority, mass surveillance is harmful.
Surveillance is harmful as the knowledge of being surveiled causes behavior alterations, even in innocent people. Suddenly, you have to wonder "Will saying/doing/buying this cause me to be surveiled? How will it look if I am surveilled currently?", and further, "Will this action cause me problems in the future if I am surveilled, and regime changes?"
The people on the other end of the camera are people too, and they're just as fallible as you or I.
>Surveillance is harmful as the knowledge of being surveiled causes behavior alterations, even in innocent people. Suddenly, you have to wonder "Will saying/doing/buying this cause me to be surveiled? How will it look if I am surveilled currently?", and further, "Will this action cause me problems in the future if I am surveilled, and regime changes?"
Thats argument against overt surveillance and argument for covert. It doesnt actually show surveillance is harmful
There is no such thing as covert surveilance unless the knowledge attained from it is never used.
>>That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.
>Reminder that mass surveillance is morally fine, unless you can find fault with the above statement.
It would also be morally fine to have prison inmates monitoring the government though wouldn't it?
theres so much youre leaving out of consideration i dont even want to argue it all
Physically restraining a grown man also prevents him from doing stuff like swallowing a LEGO brick. Does that mean the grown man needs to be restrained?