Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Wrong worry
Glasgow Univ students have elected Snowden as honorary 'rector'.
Snowden, in his statement, said: "I am humbled by and grateful to the students of Glasgow University for this historic statement in defence of our shared values. "We are reminded by this bold decision that the foundation of all learning is daring: the courage to investigate, to experiment, to inquire. If we do not contest the violation of the fundamental right of free people to be left unmolested in their thoughts, associations, and communications - to be free from suspicion without cause - we will have lost the foundation of our thinking society. The defence of this fundamental freedom is the challenge of our generation, a work that requires constructing new controls and protections to limit the extraordinary powers of states over the domain of human communication."Well said. Can't argue with any of the principles. But I can argue with the implied goal of slowing down government input. THIS IS NOT THE PROBLEM. Key point is "freedom from suspicion without cause." False accusation, whether by gov't agents or evil people, is the worst tyranny. And the best defense to false accusation is lots of cameras and mics. Cops have figured this out. They now use dashcams and bodycams to tape every encounter with a culprit, so culprits can't get away with false accusations of brutality. Russians have figured this out, and run dashcams on their cars at all times to monitor both the cops and the insurance fraudsters. Omnipresent security cams and smartphones have made many types of ordinary crime unattractive. Professional criminals understand that there's always an unbribable witness watching, so courtroom games are much less effective than before. Thus: We shouldn't be worrying about vast gov't input, except as a hugely expensive waste of money and electricity and talent. We should be worrying about gov't attempts to PREVENT US FROM MONITORING. Jamming, kill switches, "hate speech" laws. This seems to be starting in some places, but it's not widespread yet. When gov't has a MONOPOLY on monitoring, we have a real problem. Before 1990, gov't did have a monopoly, and it had total freedom to create false prosecutions. It still tries the Kafka routine, but it doesn't work nearly as well now. We have to assume that gov't is trying to bring back the old fun times, and we have to watch carefully. ¶ 2:42 PM
