Protect the country or protect individual freedoms?

I think one key difference is that the U.S. is at constant war against a method, terrorism, rather than a well-defined movement, like the IRA or the Baader-Meinhof gang. This means that there is no end-point in sight for the restriction of civil liberties. This is just the new normal for us.

And terrorism in Europe has not even been eliminated. There have been bombings in the London metro, Madrid metro, and Paris metro in the 1990s-2000s.

The country can be damned if it doesn’t protect individual freedoms. That’s what the point of the government is supposed to be. Was supposed to be, anyway.

You didn’t mention, going back into US history a hundred years or so, our “war” against anarchism, Bolshevism, unionism, Communism and other isms that turned out to be of not much account in this country. That is, there was some sporadic violence, such as bombings in the early 1900s (Sacco and Vanzetti should come to mind), which normal, diligent police work could have and mostly did resolve. Unions, for all that I don’t agree with what they have become, never had to have a violent start, except that they were so heavily repressed. Which somehow seems to absolve them – at least to themselves – from the violence that they often perpetrate now during strikes.

However, Rahm Emmanual’s advice to the president to “Never let a good crisis go to waste” is totally unneeded advice to anyone in government. They seize on every opportunity to demonstrate their need for more of our freedoms and tax dollars to “save us”.

Save me from such saving.

I think there needs to be a clearly defined and openly discussed threat. If President Obama can tell us that, “in an effort to protect us from a suspected threat from such-and-such organization(s), we will be compromising your freedoms by doing A, B, and C”; “We take this action as a necessary step to ensure the safety of the American people” — then fine.

However, to point to this amorphous, undefined, “war in terror”, with no clear goals set forth, is a little troubling.

The way you present it, it’s black and white: either you have individual freedom, or you are safe.

Of course, that’s not the case. There’s the need to find a balance. To an extent, you need to sacrifice personal freedoms to be more safe, but it’s also a matter of weighing the two against each other. Just because one action to prevent terrorism was successful in the past, does not mean that everything of which people say it is to fight terrorism will be successful, and worth it.

Furthermore, it is important to realise that you cannot eliminate terrorism. And that’s OK. I’m willing to take a risk of 0,0001% of getting killed in a terrorist attack, if that means I can live freely all my life. Just as I accept the risk of getting killed in a car accident, if that means I can get to my destination.

Why is it an either / or? Why can’t we have a safe country AND personal liberties? There is no logic in saying that it is a zero-sum choice.

And if I had to choose, as your question implies, I would rather have an occasional terror act, awful as it is, than live in a surveillance society. Look, every day 250 people die in car accidents. Some number die from smoking. A bunch of people die every day from gunshot wounds. So if I couple die every 4 years from a terror act, it’s not that big if a deal.

And – even in your suggested society – where the Patriot act trumps all other liberties, there is no guarantee that all terror will be stopped.

I vehemently disagree that the Patriot Act is good for America or that it will save lives.

The one thing it has done already is make Americans LESS likely to trust their government.

Pro-gun advocates are willing to accept the deaths of thousands of citizens every year by gun violence, as the price of individual freedom and protection of their rights.

Yet they are willing to sacrifice their rights for perceived protection against terrorism threats.

I don’t get it.

Our freedom has never been free of bloodshed, and never will be.

A big +1 for what @elbanditoroso just said.

Madison and Hamilton wrote: The powers to ensure security ought to exist without limitation, because it is impossible to foresee or to define the extent and variety of national exigencies, and the correspondant extent and variety of means which may be necessary to satisfy them. The circumstances that endanger the safety of nations are infinite, and for this reason no constitutional shackles can be wisely imposed on the power to which the care of it is committed.

James Madison wrote to Thomas Jefferson: It is a melancholy reflection that liberty should be equally exposed to danger whether the government have too much or too little power.

Abraham Lincoln authorized the execution by firing squad of those who used their freedom of speech to demoralize Union armies and incite criminal defections. His justification was impinging the rights of the agitator, he protected the rights of the rest of society.

Thoughts?

@KNOWITALL “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” B. Franklin

@KNOWITALL

James Madison died in 1836.

Abe Lincoln was born in 1809. so he was 27 years old when Madison died.

Can you give a citation so that I can read that letter? Why was Madison, a retired president, writing to Lincoln, then a fledgling Illinois lawyer and legislator?

I refuse to believe it is an either/or proposition. Warrantless wiretapping, Guantanamo Bay, torture, these all stand against what the US was founded on and we are fooling ourselves when we try to pretend they are perfectly inline with our country’s values and well being.

Bush and his croonies suckered us all into making a deal with the devil in the immediate wake of the September 11th attacks and now we have to live with it. Everyone was in a state of shock and sheer terror and he capitalized on it.

As for your historical information, I just don’t buy that because other presidents took similar routes that it is more ok for Bush or Obama to do so. It is still not the right thing to do.

@bossob, what a great point about gun rights advocates. It is also worth pointing out that they are trying to protect rights that aren’t even truly written into the Constitution – they are interpreting what is written in a way that suits their desire to own automatic machine gunes.

@elbanditoroso Good catch, my bad, it was Thomas Jefferson.

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch14s47.html

@Vincentt, couldn’t have said it better myself.

@elbanditoroso So to you, it doesn’t matter that both Dems and Reps are agreeing on the Patriot Act for the most part?

That the last two President’s of our country (Bush and Obama) agreed it was necessary to protect us? I’m just saying that there’s a lot we the people do not know about national security issues, so how can we know what is or isn’t necessary?

The IRA were never subdued by the British restrictions on freedom. The opposing sides eventually were able to hold meaningful dialog and come to some form of agreement that included secession of violence.
Even with the German restrictions the RAF were able to pull off almost 300 attacks in a 22 year period before finally fading away in the 90’s
Italy – Despite restrictions the “Years of Lead” (targeted killings, bombings and assassinations) continued into the 80’s. From 1968 to 2006 there were 418 terrorist incidents including 125 from 2000 to 2006.
France – 1097 terroristic incidences in the same timeframe including 448 from 2000 to 2006
Japan – 79 from 1968 to 2006, 20 from 2000 to 2006

Makes me question the effectiveness of all those restrictions. I would prefer to take my chances without having big brother watching my every move and recording my every keystroke.

Here is an interesting graphic on terrorist organizations at present.

Known Terrorist organizations in the US – 1.

So, can we assume from this little piece of trivia that they are not watching terrorists but their own people?

@rojo I’d have to argue that several people from other countries come here under the guise of students, political refugees, etc…and then commit crimes against the American people.

So perhaps they are looking at their ‘own’ people, does that make it wrong? David Koresh was one of ‘our people’ as well, and raped children and stockpiled weapons.

Koresh, while a criminal, was not a terrorist and the government was more interested in making an example of him than actually meteing out justice. 76 people, American citizens for the most part, died and our own government was complicit in their deaths.
And does the presence of “several” people with malicious intent justify the violation of the rights of millions? I say, no. You seem to disagree and that is well within your rights.

For now anyway.

@rojo It’s just something that bothers me. I’m a Republican as most know and all about our freedoms, but since the government is NOT transparent and they do NOT tell us everything about National Security threats, I don’t see how we as a people can feel confident saying it’s unnecessary at this point in time.

We just do not have the access to the knowledge that our President’s have and since they are our elected officials and supposedly worth of our trust, I thought I’d bring it up to the collective to discuss. Plus I haven’t stirred the pot much lately – lol

Well, @KNOWITALL we could know. If they would condescend to tell us. Then we could make our own determinations as to the validity of their arguments.

@KNOWITALL to address your question, which was: “So to you, it doesn’t matter that both Dems and Reps are agreeing on the Patriot Act for the most part?”

No, it doesn’t. Congress has a different motivations and priorities than I do. They want to be reelected, which means that they have to do things that are re-election-worthy. And taking an extreme position (either side) is better for politicians than a moderate position.

Remember that Congress is supposedly representing “the people”. That may be true for the first month of the first term, but after that, they are in survival mode. And representing the pulse of the people is left on the side of the road. (See: Gun Control vote, for one example).

So my answer is NO, primarily because congress, both parties, has a vested interested in the status quo.

@rojo I agree wholeheartedly on that! Just skeptical that it will ever happen.

@elbanditoroso Good point of course.

screw “the country”.

I don’t think it has to be either or.

Actually I don’t mind that the gov’t is watching. Is anyone on the planet surprised that they can look at our phone records? Really? Don’t you get a bill every month from VerAttMoble? They have all the records of everyone you called and vice versa.

And what about Google and Gmail. They have been looking at and keeping records on us since they started. Only they use it for even more nefarious purposes… to sell us crap! Try writing an email to yourself and mention something you have no interest in, e.g. IUD devices for elephants. You will soon start to receive ads for visiting the local zoo, birth control devices, vets, . and who knows what else. Maybe meetup dot com for animal lovers.

There are nut jobs out there with the tools and resources to do much more damage than ever possible. The founding fathers had no concept of a suitcase nuke or a dirty bomb or bio weapons. They did not know about religious fanatics with enough funding to feed a third world country. Those concepts were beyond their comprehension.

I say go after the nut jobs with all the resources you can. I don’t care if some poor investigator is reading my posts here or my emails. I am glad they’re out there. (Actually I pity the poor guy.)

In fact I’d like to see them do more. Use the info for the financial gain of the country like China does. Use it to promote and give our industries a competitive edge. But that is a whole ‘nother matter beyond the scope of this Q.

@LuckyGuy See, that’s the other side of the coin. I have nothing to hide at all (no stockpiles, no militia group, no plan to harm anyone), so why would I care who reads what, but then I think of the world’s history of abuse by monarchies and dictators, and that makes me think twice.

Also, could the incidents in the US like OK and the Boston Massacre have been prevented if more of a focus was put on foreigners in our country? Why isn’t it working, in other words?

@LuckyGuy – if I had trust in the watchers, I might, just might, agree.

But I don’t. The main problem is that information/data is fungible. Its original purpose might have been to prevent terrorism, but now it can be used to track down child support non-payers. Right now the library uses by circulation records to track when the book is due, but it’s not a huge leap to think that libraries will have to report the titles of each book I read, so that the NSA can do a psych profile on me, and so on.

Information is a lot like a skin disease…. you touch it, you get infected, you spread it…

Speaking for the British part of the question, the IRA were never defeated they came to an agreement with the British government to lay down their arms when the gerrymandered unrepresentative government of Northern Ireland was replaced with a power sharing executive.

A former leader of the IRA has become the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland and the province is now held up to the world as an example of how seemingly intractable political problems can be resolved. In a word, compromise.

The Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973 did away with the right to trial by jury and did not help resolve the conflict and most likely helped to prolong it. It has since been abolished.

The Patriot Act, despite its name, is nothing to be proud of. If you must give up your freedoms in the cause of fighting terror consider it a necessary but temporary evil. It is your freedom you should be proud of.

The Boston Globe reports:

Russian authorities alerted the US government not once but ``multiple’’ times over their concerns about Tamerlan Tsarnaev—including a second time nearly a year after he was first interviewed by FBI agents in Boston—raising new questions about whether the FBI should have focused more attention on the suspected Boston Marathon bomber, according to US senators briefed on the probe Tuesday.

***

In a closed briefing on Tuesday, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee learned that Russia alerted the United States about Tsarnaev in ``multiple contacts’’—including ``at least once since October 2011,’’ said Richard Burr, a Republican of North Carolina, speaking with reporters afterward.

Senators said the briefing also revealed failures among federal agencies to share vital information about Tsarnaev, indicating, they said, that the US government still has not established a strong system to ``connect the dots’’ about would-be terrorists residing in America more than a decade after 9/11.

Reuters notes:

The name of one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was listed on the U.S. government’s highly classified central database of people it views as potential terrorists.

***

Another list, the Terrorist Screening Database, is a declassified version of the highly classified TIDE with fewer details about terrorist suspects. One source said Tsarnaev was on this list, too.

After being put in the TIDE system, his name was entered in another database, this one maintained by the Homeland Security Department’s Customs and Border Protection bureau which is used to screen people crossing U.S. land borders and entering at airports or by sea.

Even with this information they could not stop the bombing. Their answer, and justification, is “We need more information”. I call bullshit on that one.

And don’t even get me started on 9/11.

You know, we the people, would be a lot safer if we protected our political masters less. I mean, what the hell, we replace them every few years anyway; if we have to do it a year or two earlier it won’t be that much of an imposition.

When the Patriot Act was passed, it was a signal that the September 11 2001 conspirators had achieved their goal, being financial, political and social disruption of Western society. When more security became the “new norm” people tended to forget the supposed reason for the security…to protect freedom.

They seem to forget the quotation attributed to Benjamin Franklin: “Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”

The Patriot Act had an expiration date. I had no problem with this in the aftermath of 9/11 but now we know the vast expanse of this act. I don’t normally subscribe to conspiracy theories but I can’t help but wonder, if Joe McCarthy had this data available while he was searching for communists, would he have used it to incarcerate or destroy even more Americans? It is a dangerous tool which can be misused. And tellig me that this secret program has secret limits that thwart the misuse of this data but we can’t know about them because it’s secret, doesn’t do much to allay my fears.

The patriot act should have been allowed to expire. Instead we’ve expanded it. I’m sure the old Gestapo was an affective tool for security but I wouldn’t want that either. Freedom is easy to lose and difficult to regain. Let’s not lose it for questionable goals of security. Power corrupts and this is way too much power for a government we already know is corrupt.

A pig just flew by my window. I agree with @Jaxk.

Thanks all, keep the discussion flowing!

I’m reading Fighting Terrorism by Banjamin Netanyahu, it’s very interesting.

As @bookish1 pointed out, terrorism in European countries has not been eliminated. In fact, seems as rampant as always, if not worse. I’m not entirely sure this kind of stuff really works, and even militant countries where it’s the norm for the governments to do whatever they want to the citizens are even worse off than we are, as far as this is concerned.

@KNOWITALL If you’re going to “stir the pot” (aka “troll”) then you aren’t asking a question. This clearly isn’t a question, since you obviously have formed your opinion already.
The internet contains many a place for people to spout their ill-informed opinions at each other. Does this need to be yet another?
If you are interested in security, I suggest you read some books on the subject by actual experts instead of books on war by political figures. Bruce Schneier’s Beyond Fear is a decent start. It’s a little more accessible than Applied Cryptography, still considered one of the canonical works on the subject.

Everyone else:
If you don’t want the government (or anyone else) reading your emails or other Internet communications, encrypt them. Download this program for WIndows, generate some keys, and go to town. Any bunch of bits can be encrypted, and programs exist to provide all sorts of encrypted communications, from email (GPG) to chat (cryptocat) to voice and video chat (whisper).
Learn to use TOR to anonymize your connections. Go to a cryptoparty and learn how to protect yourself and your information (while partying.)
Whatever your position on this issue, call your representatives and let them know what you think. If you want to influence the government you need to talk to them.

“You are being watched. The government has a secret system: a machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it. I designed the machine to detect acts of terror, but it sees everything…” from the TV show Person of Interest. It’s just TV fiction…or is it?

Pragmatically, a little infringement of our rights here and there seems innocuous. Supposedly, Congress and the Courts are watching out for violations. But I don’t trust the watchers for a second. They didn’t slow down McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover.

Our system of checks and balances is not very effective, and the power mongers like it that way.

I, too, was upset about much of the Patriot Act. I felt the best part about it was the sunset clause. I was incensed when it was renewed with little to no debate.

There are enough law against terrorism and murder and we do not, nor have we ever needed the “Patriot Act”. The act is just one more step to this country becoming a corporate fascist state. You know the old saying, “a person that would forsake liberty for safety deserves neither”.

@bossob ”Pro-gun advocates are willing to accept the deaths of thousands of citizens every year by gun violence, as the price of individual freedom and protection of their rights.

Yet they are willing to sacrifice their rights for perceived protection against terrorism threats.”

You could not have formulated a more incorrect assumption if you tried. You are confusing what elected representatives say vs. what gun rights advocates want. Lawmakers are whores who have no cares about what the people want and will pander or throw us under the bus depending on the situation. With respect to the gun rights issue: As I belong to this wing of US civil liberties I can say we also believe the govt is getting too intrusive. It??? grants itself any and all the power it wants to, and it’s on a steam roller trajectory toward a system where only the few get full freedoms and the rest of us will need to apply for permission to do anything all in the name of security. They are getting away with all this because American are hysterical ninnies and demand something be done to stop whatever. Recently in Boston where govt goons rounded up people out of there homes treating them as suspects going house to house looking for one kid. They locked down a complete area quickly and people were praising this. They didn’t “get their man” until they allowed everyone permission to go outside when someone found the kid. All this rhetoric of: “if you have nothing to hide you don’t need to worry” is total BS.

The deal with this new system of protective measures is, it will never stop growing in concentric circles because this so called war on terror is never going to end. This new war??, is the biggest gift to those who want to never stop prying to ensure control and to be able to always wage war in its name. I can’t see how any free country can endure this for long.
@rexacoracofalipitorius The attack on @KNOWITALL was uncalled for. It’s her thread. If you don’t approve of it move on. If you expect all of us to adhere to your strict parameters of starting off a question then this place is going to get pretty quiet really quick. You understand all things computer related. We bow to your giant pompous brain.

Call your representatives? really?

@rexacoracofalipitorius Well, see, that was kind of a little joke, because I don’t like stirring the pot on purpose, and yes I really am interested in hearing other people’s opinions.

@woodcutter I heart you! :)

Personally, I think that when Bush & Cheney came up with the PATRIOT ACT they were actively trying to control all of America. Unfortunately, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. I think that the PATRIOT ACT should (at the very least) be amended – or even better, totally NULLIFIED.

@KNOWITALL I did not know that about you. I will concede that you were not deliberately flame-baiting but sincerely seeking opinions, since you say so.
It seemed as though your opinion was already set, particularly when you made the non-factual assertion that the cited examples of the contravention of individual rights were “effective” in protecting the countries involved. I won’t argue that point here, since others have addressed it in some detail.

In general, there isn’t a causal connection between decreased individual liberty and greater security. Gathering more data just gives you a bigger pile of data to sort through in order to find what you are looking for. Gathering data without probable cause is not only (arguably) illegal but also counterproductive for this reason.

@rexacoracofalipitorius Thank you! I just find it very odd that they can spy on all of us freely, but after multiple warnings they couldn’t prevent the Boston bombings, something is wrong here. Now drones in America, too.

The basic tenet of my privacy for the country doesn’t bother me because I’m a Patriot and would sacrifice for this country, but it doesn’t seem to be effective at this point, or at least they haven’t given us examples of how good it’s working. Does that make sense?

I knew they were using drones on the southern border and that there were individual police departments looking to purchase them, ostensibly the unarmed ones but you never can tell or trust. I suspected that they were using them in the US since the technology was available and we the people are as untrustworthy as them the enemy.

I grew up in the generation that said “Question Authority” and “Never Trust Anyone Over Thirty”. Even though I am approaching 60 I find myself still believing both of these mottos.

Personal freedom – The right to do whatever the government tells you to do.

I think at the very least we have a right to be notified after or when, someone has examined our harvested activity records as long as we aren’t under any suspicion of wrong doing. It could be set up as an automatic notification. Should be easy to make work since they already have every possible way to contact us. I know I sure would like to know who was peeking into my affairs, and why. Once the govt latches on to someone they don’t let go like a damn pit bull regardless if they had a good reason in the first place. I’m just glad I don’t have that much longer in this shit, y’all can have it. Enjoy :/

A few things that might be interesting for you to think about:

1. “You have nothing to hide because you’re doing nothing wrong.” Unfortunately it’s not you who decides what’s “wrong”. And it’s not going to be the current president either, in the future.
2. Why would you only care about the interests of those in your country? Would you not rather have as many people as possible all over the world to be happy?

@Vincentt 1) Well I don’t think I’ll be thrown in Gitmo for working all day, coming home to take care of the the house and family, and going to bed. But I get your point to a degree.

2) Sure I would, especially since I have family in another country and friends in many, but my priority is, of course, my country.

@KNOWITALL How do you know some of the prisoners in Gitmo aren’t as innocent as you?

@flutherother I don’t and it bothers me, but isn’t that what the Patriot Act was for, detention without cause for national security?

They say it is for national security, but what about individual security. If your government can lock you up indefinitely without cause and without hope of appeal you haven’t gained security you have lost it. We shouldn’t take the freedoms that we have for granted. They were hard won and they are easily lost.

@flutherother Exactly, but that’s what this question is about, does my personal security trump national security.
They were hard won, but our forefathers I quoted above said that national security always trumps individual security, which is what I found interesting.

I hate getting those tags in your luggage that the TSA leaves just to let you know your bag was randomly selected to be searched through by some fucking creeper. What kind of halfassed security method is that? Randomly selecting luggage?

If it’s the personal security of every inhabitant of the nation, then what does national security have to offer that is more important than that?

And I still don’t get why people from your own country are “of course” your priority. I’d love my fellow countrymen to live a happy life, but the same goes for people who do not happen to live here.

The whole default of govt failure to protect its people has been “Be vigilant”. Has been for a long time. In other words watch your own ass because the govt isn’t going to be able to be everywhere at the same time so if something does manage to sneak by don’t be too pissed at us. The word “vigilant is the root word to which word? Having unfettered access to all our communications is one attempt at being everywhere at the same time. Or we could just tolerate Humvees at every choke point in our towns and troops going through our shit all the time. It’s safe to assume they have plans for that scenario too. The radicals are winning this one. Now we need to figure out who the radicals are. Al-Qaeda, or the US govt?

Using drones for surveillance in hostile countries is a perfectly acceptable use of the technology. Allowing the president (any president) the powers of judge. jury, and executioner is totally unconstitutional and contrary to the supposed principles of this country.

The idea of a pilot going to work on a sunny Nevada morning, killing a dozen or so people and making it home in time for supper is particularly disgusting. No president should have the right to order such things.

@Ron_C

Yea, buy now that pilot can be onpenly gay and killing them has got to be btter than waterboarding them. That’s got to count for something.

I don’t see drone missiles launching in the states unless an incident turns into a conflagration where federal agents are being killed. They kill in other countries where there is no hope of making an arrest in order to face a trial or some kind of hearing. I don’t like even unarmed drones looking down on us but it might not be much of a problem to put a missile on them. Probable cause has flown out the window in this country. What recourse if any do people have when they innocently are caught up in a dragnet. Are they summarily charged with something in order to justify the action or do they get paid off to not complain?

@woodcutter Respectfully disagree. Had the technology been available at Waco they would have used it without a second thought.

@rojo Nope. Not with all those kids in there. You know, all those abused kids they say they were trying to rescue. It would have been almost mandatory that someone in the chain of command be sent to prison. And we all know how the govt really hates to have to do that. They set off a fire and killed them off anyway, but at least that method was easy to cover up as an accident. The feds give two shits about any kids just ask Vicky Weaver. Oh wait you can’t, she’s dead. Another accident.

@Woodcutter is right, they had no intention of getting those kids out of there.