IP: Re: Britain's sad decline of liberty a warning for U.S.: Dan Gillmor on Technology Thu Jul 05 15:15:09 EDT 2001

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2001 12:11:31 +1200
> From: Hamish MacEwan <Default () Hamish MacEwan gen nz>
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
>
> On Thu, Jul 05, 2001 at 19:48 -0400, David Farber wrote:
>
> > [ My only comment right now is:
> >
> > "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
> > little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
> > safety." - Ben Franklin, ~1784
> >
> > Dave]
>
> The increase in enforceability, which the correspondent
> lauds as a desirable outcome of surveillance for a number of
> crimes that we find either abhorrent or inconvenient, misses
> the point that at some time, inevitably if Voltaire and
> others are to be believed, such mechanisms will be used for
> other purposes.
>
> Enforcement of the law is always in tension with the consent
> of the governed.
>
> [a bit like copyright and fair use... <grin>]
>
> Screwing down the lid tighter and tighter with progressively
> more invasive surveillance, will pay a negative dividend
> beyond the short term improvement in crime statistics.
>
> It is probably another short-term cost-effective solution
> to behavioural problems that will at some point explode.
>
> We need not bother about the poor or distressed, simply
> enforce behaviour rather than addressing the causes.
>
> For every ten people who are clipping at the branches of
> evil, you're lucky to find one who's hacking at the roots.
> -- Henry David Thoreau
>
> Surveillance is that clipping.
>
> Hamish.



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