Let me throw a concept out there: there is not objective "correct" position to take in this case.
Who are we to say that this level of surveillance is not worth it? We know very little if anything of what it has achieved. Consider for a while that the population is not "pliable", but that it is possible to have a differing opinion on this topic.
This is how it starts. History proves that those who are willing to conditionally waive their rights (to privacy in this case) will see an inevitable erosion, followed by an unconditional elimination of those rights.
History has demonstrated the opposite, at least in the U.S.
You had no right to privacy on a telephone line, unlil eventually Congress passed a law against wiretapping and set controls on when the government could wiretap, controls which were later strengthened by the Supreme Court.
Cell phones: Started off with no privacy. If you had a radio scanner you could legally intercept conversations, even if you were the government (after all, they were being broadcast right in the clear in plain view of anyone who had an antenna). Again, Congress passed a law to ban deliberate interception of these communications and set similar control s on the government.
Even beepers had a specific law passed for them.
On the other hand, your slippery slope argument has itself been used to support horrific policies. Does anyone remember the reasoning for Vietnam? It was based on a slippery-slope argument itself.
The flipside of having a democracy is that people might actually choose to entrust the government with a given power. For example, the American people have seen practically no qualms whatsoever about the American government having things which are much more potentially dangerous: nuclear weapons.
I disagree. It is objectively correct that these programs need significantly more public accountability. The fact that their existence has been an official state secret is about as contradictory to American principles of government by the will of the people as it can get.
I am aware of the argument that disclosing their existence makes them less effective and to that I say if we must violate our principles to defend them, we aren't really defending them.
Idiotic sentiment. We know pretty well what is achieved based on government statistics and the "successes" that they actually show us: there is practically nothing achieved because the terror threat is practically non-existent for the US.
I also have an anti-tiger rock. Just imagine how many tiger maulings that thing has saved me from! It was a steal at $100 Billion.
Comments
Let me throw a concept out there: there is not objective "correct" position to take in this case.
Who are we to say that this level of surveillance is not worth it? We know very little if anything of what it has achieved. Consider for a while that the population is not "pliable", but that it is possible to have a differing opinion on this topic.
This is how it starts. History proves that those who are willing to conditionally waive their rights (to privacy in this case) will see an inevitable erosion, followed by an unconditional elimination of those rights.
History has demonstrated the opposite, at least in the U.S.
You had no right to privacy on a telephone line, unlil eventually Congress passed a law against wiretapping and set controls on when the government could wiretap, controls which were later strengthened by the Supreme Court.
Cell phones: Started off with no privacy. If you had a radio scanner you could legally intercept conversations, even if you were the government (after all, they were being broadcast right in the clear in plain view of anyone who had an antenna). Again, Congress passed a law to ban deliberate interception of these communications and set similar control s on the government.
Even beepers had a specific law passed for them.
On the other hand, your slippery slope argument has itself been used to support horrific policies. Does anyone remember the reasoning for Vietnam? It was based on a slippery-slope argument itself.
The flipside of having a democracy is that people might actually choose to entrust the government with a given power. For example, the American people have seen practically no qualms whatsoever about the American government having things which are much more potentially dangerous: nuclear weapons.
I disagree. It is objectively correct that these programs need significantly more public accountability. The fact that their existence has been an official state secret is about as contradictory to American principles of government by the will of the people as it can get.
I am aware of the argument that disclosing their existence makes them less effective and to that I say if we must violate our principles to defend them, we aren't really defending them.
Idiotic sentiment. We know pretty well what is achieved based on government statistics and the "successes" that they actually show us: there is practically nothing achieved because the terror threat is practically non-existent for the US.
I also have an anti-tiger rock. Just imagine how many tiger maulings that thing has saved me from! It was a steal at $100 Billion.