[Der_Don]

QUOTE (guancho @ Thursday, Jan 26 2012, 03:19)

Sorry my English is poor, jajaja. I have studied German in school and learn that language fluent. English is a work in process for me, jajajaja. One day I can go to the Kingdom and try to pick up some English better.

Didn't you say you were a pilot for the Spanish Air Force? I always thought pilots have to be fluent in English?

Sorry for OT.

[Irviding]

Exactly what I was saying. A camera is no where near as effective as a UAV is.

Don, I mean he's fluent in English, it's just not perfect.

[spaceeinstein]

I feel like the constant surveillance issue boils down to trust. As a kid/teenager, your parents do limited surveillance to protect you but trust you enough as to not excessively monitor you every single second. I don't think any child or especially teenager want the parents to constantly monitor their activities. Even if no harm is done physically, there can be psychological harm. Parents can become overprotective and hinder the development of childhood/teenage life experiences, being able to nitpick at the tiniest errors and details. You want you parents to trust you enough, give you enough freedom, so that you can enjoy life to the fullest while being protected to a certain extent.

Now think of that child/teenager as being a citizen of a state/nation and the parents as being a (mostly) benevolent government. The government should be able to protect its citizens but enough to not generate mass paranoia among its citizens. Governments should trust its citizens enough so that its citizens don't live in fear, and create policies that shouldn't excessively intrude into the lives of the average citizen while being able to deter crimes more effectively. If there is unlimited surveillance, you can hypothetically increase safety, but if you know that you are being watched all the time, it would limit your ability to live a comfortable life. Each little accident you make could throw a fine at you or a night in a cell.

But different people have different level of tolerance to untrustworthiness. I myself don't like being monitored and tracked easily (though if you try really hard, you can follow my life through the web). I hate to give out my real life information online. But my parents don't care. They argue that if they don't do anything illegal (or "illegal"), being monitored is harmless to them. For me, if the government has the ability to track you from point A to B at anytime, then that is going too far. How can a government be able to be run by citizens if it can't even trust its own citizens for the sake of safety? In the end, unfortunately, sh*t happens to innocent people in a free society, but at least today is not as bad as back in those days.

This post has been edited by spaceeinstein on Wednesday, Feb 1 2012, 05:24

[illspirit]

QUOTE (sivispacem @ Sunday, Jan 22 2012, 06:31)

My personal view- "as many as is necessary". The primary mandate of a government is to ensure security for its citizens. It is not, contrary to popular belief, to provide freedoms and civil rights for the population.

Generally speaking, perhaps, but according to our constitution, securing the "Blessing of Liberty" is indeed one of the primary mandates. Granted, you could argue that it's not the primary mandate since it shares a line of text with the general welfare and common defence, but it doesn't say that one should trump the other should they come into conflict either (more on that in a second though). And while the Declaration of Independence doesn't carry any legal weight, per se, securing certain inalienable rights does receive top billing.

QUOTE (sivispacem @ Sunday, Jan 22 2012, 06:31)

In fact, the very idea of government is that individuals voluntarily sacrifice a proportion of their freedoms and rights in order to provide stability and security for a nation.

Again, perhaps in general, but our concept of government was based on the idea that rights are not sacrificed, and only powers are delegated to government in order to provide stability/security/etc.. Given that said powers must generally exist before they can be granted, and such power in the hands of individuals before granting it (in aggregate or otherwise) is limited by the natural rights of their neighbor, the idea that one could be sacrificed for the other is not only a false choice, but is in itself contradictory under our original concept of government.

To wit, given that we have a natural right to self defense, we can pay state agents to defend us personally or nationally just as we could do for ourselves. We cannot, however, as individuals, kick down a neighbor's door who has done nothing to us and murder or kidnap them preemptively based on mere suspicion (let alone because we don't like their personal choices..). That we do not have this power should mean that it is not ours to grant to anyone. While there are surely countless examples of how an actual bad guy was stopped via such legalistic expediency, if the cases are really such slam dunks, how much security would really be lost from simply arresting them in a manner which doesn't require wholesale suspension of rights?

How much security is truly gained from, say, gutting our 4th Amendment to allow SWAT teams to conduct paramilitary raids in the name of the War on Drugs/Terror/Torn-Off Mattress Tags/Whatever with little to no thought given to rights (even in the frequent event of a wrong address raid) when it would be just as easy to arrest the suspect when they goto the grocery store or some such? And, as above, being that our government's powers are supposed to be an extension of the innate powers of the individuals who grant it, the reverse implication of creating such powers out of whole cloth is that there is a right to initiate force against one's neighbor.

Thus, if the premise of "security" is based on the idea that anyone-- state actors or private --has some inherent right to initiate force, then is anyone really secure?

That said, and going back to the original topic at hand, I do agree with you in theory on cameras even though I'm not a fan of them as policy. Seeing as we all have a right to use our eyes to look around in public, paying some other person to do the same doesn't rob anyone else of their rights in and of itself.

[Irviding]

QUOTE

when it would be just as easy to arrest the suspect when they goto the grocery store or some such?

I'm with you almost completely other than for this - what exactly is wrong with using a search warrant? And the problem with waiting for the person to leave is, you don't know if that person is playing an active role in severe criminal activity - what if he stays in his house for 2 days straight? I just don't agree with that.

[illspirit]

QUOTE (Irviding @ Wednesday, Feb 1 2012, 20:05)

QUOTE when it would be just as easy to arrest the suspect when they goto the grocery store or some such? I'm with you almost completely other than for this - what exactly is wrong with using a search warrant? And the problem with waiting for the person to leave is, you don't know if that person is playing an active role in severe criminal activity - what if he stays in his house for 2 days straight? I just don't agree with that.

Define severe criminal activity though. It used to be SWAT teams were only used when there was some real chance of actual harm if they couldn't wait any longer. EG, hostage situations, a family member who snaps and threatens to kill them all, and the like which even in a hypothetical Ayn-Rand-topia would tend to justify intervention. If, however, the severe criminal activity is that they're planning to sell drugs later, or, hell, even conspiring to hijack a plane, if they sit in their house for 2 days straight that's 2 less days of them selling the "evil" drugs or 2 more days to foil their terror plot.

And when "severe" is defined down to the level of someone smoking a joint, having outstanding parking tickets, or growing flowers without some arcane license, well, they could sit there for 2 more years without hurting anyone.

[Irviding]

QUOTE (illspirit @ Wednesday, Feb 1 2012, 19:49)

QUOTE (Irviding @ Wednesday, Feb 1 2012, 20:05) QUOTE when it would be just as easy to arrest the suspect when they goto the grocery store or some such? I'm with you almost completely other than for this - what exactly is wrong with using a search warrant? And the problem with waiting for the person to leave is, you don't know if that person is playing an active role in severe criminal activity - what if he stays in his house for 2 days straight? I just don't agree with that. Define severe criminal activity though. It used to be SWAT teams were only used when there was some real chance of actual harm if they couldn't wait any longer. EG, hostage situations, a family member who snaps and threatens to kill them all, and the like which even in a hypothetical Ayn-Rand-topia would tend to justify intervention. If, however, the severe criminal activity is that they're planning to sell drugs later, or, hell, even conspiring to hijack a plane, if they sit in their house for 2 days straight that's 2 less days of them selling the "evil" drugs or 2 more days to foil their terror plot. And when "severe" is defined down to the level of someone smoking a joint, having outstanding parking tickets, or growing flowers without some arcane license, well, they could sit there for 2 more years without hurting anyone.

What if the police are worried that person is going to be giving orders to another member of his/her cell? It sounds like an unnecessary risk.