Whither privacy?
January 13, 2007 on 12:58 am |Categories: culture, human rights, law, politics, uk
Tags: culture, human rights, law, politics, uk
A number of things have popped up on the radar (read: RSS reader) from sources such as 27B Stroke 6, BoingBoing and EFF: Deep Links that have sounded to me like extremely Bad Things from a privacy/individual rights point of view. These sorts of things come out of such sources all the time, but it seems to me that in the last few months some particularly concerning ones have arisen which are either (a) so concerning in the first place that they warrant a Tin Foil Hat and or (b) have conspicuously failed to go away.
Some notable examples from the past few days’ media coverage:
Swedes favour more bugging
Supreme court refuses to hear challenge to air passenger identification requirements
The continuing air passenger data-sharing disagreement between the EU & USA
US Visitor Fingerprints To Be (Perhaps) Stored by FBI
Bush says feds can open mail without warrant
I personally find some of these developments to be more than a little disturbing: however I am conscious that, particularly outside the United States (where many of the most egregious challenges to civil liberties occur nowadays), people don’t seem to care about privacy any more. Or else, they see these developments as inevitable and (to some extent) a necessary compromise.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the political context of the ‘war on terror(ism)’, or whether it’s part of a trend of passivity toward individual rights which pre-dates 9/11. In any case, many seem willing to trade privacy for ’security’. Ben Franklin aside, people apparently fail to recognise the dangerous, and quite possibly permanent trade-off they are making.
The arguments used always go something like this: “We are facing a radically new threat, that of violent and suicidal terrorism. This terrorism seeks to destroy our essential liberties”.
And then the logical complement which is usually given:
“Therefore, we must give up some individual liberties in order to guarantee the security of the community as a whole”
For the life (and liberty) of me, I can’t make this argument flow. We hear it every day from people like John Reid, Tony Blair and any number of chief police officers, yet as far as I can see, it’s analytically hollow.
The final gambit often turns out to be a suspension of due legal process, as a corollary of the compromise made. New threats = suspension of tried and tested principles. To take an example: Section 43 of the Terrorism Act 2000’s stop-and-search powers.
I’d like to throw this one open to my intelligent and well-informed readership. So, answers on a postcard please:
Is 9/11 entirely to blame for society’s acceptance of measures like these, or were people already willing to make the compromise?
Does the example argument presented have merit?
Is it justified, necessary or effective to make compromises in privacy and civil liberties for the purposes of defeating terrorism?
Are privacy and civil liberties contested concepts in the first place?
Do you think that measures such as Sec. 43 will be repealed - or is the loss of civil liberties a relatively one-way street?
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Great stuff Graeme, you’ve brought up some stories I hadn’t seen at all. Then again, I’ve only really seen the mainstream media since I got back from Barca. Hmmm…what does that tell you?
The whole “war on terror” argument would be non-existent if people actually knew what world they lived in. I read an article in the Sunday Times where a security analyst stated anonomously-”Do you honestly think that a bunch of millitants in caves with thirty year old weaponry are actually going to bring down the world’s largest superpower?” Sadly, most people don’t have a view that extends beyond the Co-Op in their street, never mind a world view.
The issue is simple. The United States and it’s allies could utterly destroy millitant Islamic terrorism forever if they had a decent plan and use their full economic capability. But they won’t.
What this is about is destroying any opposition to the New american Century plan, the one where all fighting will be done in space with tiny robots, that sort of thing. Civil liberties are the greatest threat of all to American dominance because they allow people to undermine and question their desire to be the superpower for the next hundred years. I propose in my lovely novel, which will eventually find a home, that the only war just now is between state and the individual, a fact you’ve highlighted in this splendid blog. Well done sir.
Comment by Chuffy — 13th January 2007 #
Thanks for the comment, Chuffy. I think you might appreciate this story, and the quote which sparked the furore. It’s not about privacy as such - rather a freedom of speech issue - but the compromises being made are similar.
Marquette: We Can’t Allow Speech To Which Somebody Objects
I’m not actually up on conscious conspiracy theories as you describe but I am concerned that bureaucracies, and mentalities, created to deal with one threat will find ways of sustaining and expanding themselves.
Comment by Graeme — 15th January 2007 #