Political Compass #41: Only wrongdoers need worry about official surveillance.

Great Debates
1

Many political debates here have included references to The Political Compass, which uses a set of 61 questions to assess one’s political orientation in terms of economic left/right and social libertarianism/authoritarianism (rather like the “Libertarian diamond” popular in the US).

And so, every so often I will begin a thread in which the premise for debate is one of the 61 questions. I will give which answer I chose and provide my justification and reasoning. Others are, of course, invited to do the same including those who wish to “question the question”, as it were.

It would also be useful when posting in these threads to give your own “compass reading” in your first post, by convention giving the Economic value first. My own is
SentientMeat: Economic: -5.12, Social: -7.28, and so by the above convention my co-ordinates are (-5.12, -7.28). Please also indicate which option you ticked. I might suggest what I think is the “weighting” given to the various answers in terms of calculating the final orientation, but seeing for yourself what kind of answers are given by those with a certain score might be more useful than second-guessing the test’s scoring system.

Now, I appreciate that there is often dissent regarding whether the assessment the test provides is valid, notably by US conservative posters, either because it is “left-biased” (??) or because some propositions are clearly slanted, ambiguous or self-contradictory. The site itself provides answers to these and other Frequently Asked Questions, and there is also a separate thread: Does The Political Compass give an accurate reading? [size=2]Read these first and then, if you have an objection to the test in general, please post it there. If your objection is solely to the proposition in hand, post here. If your objection is to other propositions, please wait until I open a thread on them. (And for heaven’s sake, please don’t quote this entire Opening Post when replying like this sufferer of bandwidth diarrhea.)

The above will be pasted in every new thread in order to introduce it properly, and I’ll try to let each one exhaust itself of useful input before starting the next. Without wanting to “hog the idea”, I would be grateful if others could refrain from starting similar threads. Finally, I advise you to read the full proposition below, not just the thread title (which is necessarily abbreviated), and request that you debate my entire OP rather than simply respond, “IMHO”-like, to the proposition itself.

To date, the threads are:

Does The Political Compass give an accurate reading?
Political Compass #1: Globalisation, Humanity and OmniCorp.
#2: My country, right or wrong
#3: Pride in one’s country is foolish.
#4: Superior racial qualities.
#5: My enemy’s enemy is my friend.
#6: Justifying illegal military action.
#7: “Info-tainment” is a worrying trend.
#8: Class division vs. international division. (+ SentientMeat’s economic worldview)
#9: Inflation vs. unemployment.
#10: Corporate respect of the environment.
#11: From each according to his ability, to each according to need.
#12: Sad reflections in branded drinking water.
#13: Land should not be bought and sold.
#14: Many personal fortunes contribute nothing to society.
#15: Protectionism is sometimes necessary in trade.
#16: Shareholder profit is a company’s only responsibility.
#17: The rich are too highly taxed.
#18: Better healthcare for those who can pay for it.
#19: Penalising businesses which mislead the public.
#20: The freer the market, the freer the people.
#21: Abortion should be illegal.
#22: All authority must be questioned.
#23: An eye for an eye.
#24: Taxpayers should not prop up theatres or museums.
#25: Schools shouldn’t make attendance compulsory.
#26: Different kinds of people should keep to their own.
#27: Good parents sometimes have to spank their children.
#28: It’s natural for children to keep secrets.
#29: Marijuana should be legalised.
#30: School’s prime function is equipping kids to find jobs.
#31: Seriously disabled people should not reproduce.
#32: Learning discipline is the most important thing.
#33: ‘Savage peoples’ vs. ‘different culture’
#34: Society should not support those who refuse to work.
#35: Keep cheerfully busy when troubled.
#36: First generation immigrants can never be fully integrated.
#37: What’s good for corporations is always good for everyone.
#38: No broadcasting institution should receive public funding.
#39: Our civil rights are being excessively curbed re. terrorism.
#40: One party states avoid delays to progress.
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**Proposition #41: Although the electronic age makes official surveillance easier, only wrongdoers need to be worried.

SentientMeat** (-5.12, -7.28) ticks Strongly Disagree.

The trouble with official surveillance is that it constitutes a form of punishment in itself. We must ensure that this punishment is justified before the surveillance begins, rather than allow those officials to arbitrarily target whomever they please.

Here in Britain, some alarms have been raised regarding the proliferation of Closed Circuit TV cameras in public, which the police use to monitor activity in busy shopping streets, places with lots of alcohol-licensed premises, or major traffic junctions. Uncomfortable as one might feel about being monitored in this way, these cameras do make a difference in getting officers to a trouble or crime spot quickly, and provide evidence to justify the victim’s account in court if necessary. (And compared to the surveillance in private institutions such as the global face-recognition software in casinos, it is arguably no more invasive than walking past a policeman.)

But surveillance can, and does, go much further than this. I would ask anyone who ticked Agree: How would you feel about you or your family being photographed while masturbating, or details of rather personal or embarrassing medical conditions being photocopied and distributed wholesale, or of past lovers, friends, family or colleagues being phoned up and asked for highly intimate or confidential information? Would you feel unjustly violated even though you hadn’t done anything wrong? Would you be worried if officials threatened to do these things to you?

Me too. The simple fact is that not only wrongdoers are surveilled: indeed, the point of surveillance is to decide whether further investigation is necessary or whether someone is an unwitting, innocent pawn.

Anyone can come under surveillance (some members of this very message board already have). That guy you passed in the street or stood next to in the shop? He was actually under surveillance, and now they’re following you home and noting your address in case he passed something to you. Wrongdoers may have got your credit card or bank details from somewhere, or hijacked your cellphone number, or defrauded hospitals in your name, or chosen your computer as the decoy node of a child pornography network. If this has happened, then your computer activity is now being logged, your medical details are now on the photocopier, you and your daughter or mother are now electronically followed into their very bedrooms and bathrooms. OK?

Worried?

As with other propositions here, we must ask ourselves how far the state may go when it comes to people who are only suspected of a crime, given that they might be completely innocent. If we glibly dismiss false accusations by saying “no smoke without fire”, then to whom do we turn when wrongdoers make smoke appear to come from us?

Official surveillance may be necessary to some extent. But it should still be worrying even to those who have done no wrong.

2

7.15, -1.15 : Disagree. Especially since the proposition is once again worded in such a dogmatic fashion.

My misgivings with surveillance have, though I feel an instinctive unease at being observed by unknown people for unknown purposes, perhaps more to do with that it would be an incredible powerful (and too powerful) tool in the hands of totalitarian groups or the state. 1984 being the primary example. There are other science fiction writers who sees electronic surveillance as a great boon to humanity. Larry Niven (…I think it was – I can’t find it now) wrote a sort of utopian novel about a whole city in which where everything was always under surveillance. David Brin has written some articles about the great positive possibilities with surveillance. Here for instance: Three cheers for the Surveillance Society!, here’s a book he wrote on the subject: The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?

There’s also the problem with defining who the wrongdoers are? Sometimes the good guys are the once fighting against the state. And I don’t necessarily see why private surveillance should be inherently worse than official, as is implied by the proposition.

3

Those look interesting Rune - do you subscribe/own the book? I’d be interested in his general points and conclusions.

Do you get this from #41? I don’t see such an implication myself. I mentioned eg. casinos merely to compare those traffic cameras to a situation in which your identity was actively sought in order to check you as a possible card-counter etc.: I don’t think private surveillance is by any means ‘inherently worse’, and more than a police officer observing you walk past is better or worse than, say, me oberserving you - I just pointed out that private institutions sometimes go further than offical ones, and we can use our custom to object to such just as we might use our vote in the offical case.

4

Erratum: any more than a police officer…

5

There are so many laws and rules on the books that EVERYBODY is a “wrongdoer” if somebody in power decides to target a specific individual for thorough investigation. This “political compass” is meaningless.

6

The innocent have far more to worry about regarding this sort of surveillance than the guilty. The worst that can happen to a guilty man is that he will be caught, and get the punishment he deserves. But the innocent man? He can be falsely accused and punished for a crime he did not commit, and there is nothing more heinous the state can do in my name. That is why the innocent have much to fear.

7

Strongly disagree, if only because my parents use this argument to hover over me whenever I use the computer, etc.

8

1984 we all know. Though I think it’s important to realise that surveillance (telescreen etc.) wasn’t really an integral part of Ingosoc’s idea of society. Rather it was an indication that the “perfect” state hadn’t yet been attained, since in the perfect state the people would supposedly survey themselves through doublespeak and thought-crime would be theoretically impossible. Internal surveillance would be what ruled people. External surveillance would become unneccesary.

Oath of fealty By Larry Niven http://www.iblist.com/book2025.htm
I have it at home some place. It has been a while since I read it, I remember it as a nasty little piece, full of the author’s small spiteful idiosyncrasies, like making fun of suicide candidates and describing losers as Darwinism in action etc., not my sort of utopia at all. Larry Niven can be a fun author at times, but he was raised on Heinlein’s lap, often his characters are two-dimensional and he has a foul streak half a mile wide. Mostly it was interesting to me because it with enthusiasm described a utopia I didn’t share. The city was a private enterprise much like a gated community I suppose, built someplace outside a run-down crime ridden Los Angeles. All public places inside the city were under camera surveillance and followed by policemen whom watched the screens randomly. Everybody also had some kind of personal tag, whereby they could be instantaneously located. All private rooms were also under surveillance, and if a crime occurred the tapes would be dug up and the criminal identified. All this worked perfectly according to the intent and there were very little crime, and much American middle class content with SAH moms and home-backed cookies. Or perhaps I was just really annoyed that day.

I don’t have David Brins’s book. But discussion and articles on it is all over the net. Wired had an article on Brin’s surveillance society: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/fftransparent.html

I think his ideas are that the technologies are coming no matter what we want and we might as well use them for the best, and the surveillance can also be used to keep check on the state (as in the Rodney King case – or more recent the Iraq Abu Ghrabi case) and empower and free humans. Who knows, perhaps he’s right. It can certainly be argued that electronic technology (especially the Internet) have until now benefited and empowered the citizens at the expense of the state more than visa versa and it is a fact that we’re on the tiger’s back and on for the ride.

Perhaps as free time today has become one of the luxuries, hallmark of the rich. Privacy in the future will be a luxury only the rich can afford.

9

Disagree. Everyone should “worry” about surveillance, but that doesn’t mean that surveillance should be stopped.

The point David Brin makes is that ubiquitous surveillance is inevitable. Costs for cameras and digital storage are going to keep falling and falling, to the point where you can set up cameras and other sensors every few feet for a trivial amount of money. What will that mean? Are we going to ban cameras in public? Of course not.

Some of this is obviously good. Every cop should have a video camera recording his actions at all times. This is good for catching perps, since we’ve got video evidence. And it’s good for protecting the public, since the cops can’t beat the crap out of someone without having it shown on tape. And if the police cameras somehow conveniently malfunction during an alleged episode of police abuse? Then citizen cameras are probably watching.

But of course, it goes on and on. Sensors get cheaper, smaller, easier to use, data is easier to store. How do you keep government officials and private citizens from spying on you when the act of spying is as easy as downloading a pirated music CD?

There are two things that will keep this from turning into a totalitarian nightmare. The first is that there will be so much data that no one will care. You can’t fully monitor a hundred billion cameras and sensors without a hundred billion people watching a hundred billion screens. 99.999% of the data will be thrown away without ever being looked at. The data will be accessed only if someone cares enough to access it. And of course, most of our lives are too boring for anyone to be interested in. Plus, no one is going to be shocked by video of you cleaning your nose or wiping your ass, everyone does it. Our social norms will change.
Second, ubiquitous surveillance goes both ways. If people can use surveillance tools to watch you, you can use surveillance tools to find out if people are watching you. You use surveillance to detect surveillance. There may not be much you can do if someone decides to watch you all the time, but most of the bad things about being watched happen because you don’t know you’re being watched. A stalker can’t harm you if you know where they are and the cops know where they are, and you can send a 911 call automatically if they get within 50 feet of you. And if the cops are watching you and you know the cops are watching you, you can challenge that by complaining to the police department, or the courts. Why are they watching YOU, when they should be out busting perps? If the surveillance is known, they’ll have to publicly justify that surveillance.

David Brin’s other main point was that the potential upsides of ubiquitous suveillance might not actually materialize, the negatives might outweigh the positives. But the genie is out of the bottle, we can’t stuff it back in. Rather than wasting time trying to ban surveillance and mandate strict privacy laws we’d be better off fighting to try to make sure that the potential benefits really do materialize, and that the benefits are realized by everyone and not by the elite at the expense of the general public.

10

+7/-3

Disagree. Could easily be Strongy Disagree. For the reasons mentioned so far. Nothing really to add.

11

Economic Left/Right: -1.38 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.28 ticks Disagree

Is that how we start these?

Surveillance, in of itself, is a necessary, possibly even a good thing. Everytime I use a credit card, it gets swiped. If I stop off at the bike shop, there’s a video camera watching my bicycle. Neither of these two methods is official, but they could easily be used by the Police/FBI/BigBrother. I’m fine with that. In the first case, I am a willing participant. In the second, not only am a willing participant, but the only people who could come to harm are thieves.

Of course, official surveillance is different. Every time I travel to America, I have my mugshot and fingerprints taken. Every time I take a book out of the library, the FBI could be monitoring me. Everytime I call my mother, the NSA could be listening in. Everytime I walk through UT campus, I know I’m being filmed by the campus police. Does this bother me? Yes, but not so much that I’m prepared to do anything about it.
In my opinion, it’s worth the risks (which are potentionally enormous - of stasi like proportions). More accurately, it’s better than the alternative. A complete lack of surveillance would mean:

No police patrols
No ID checks, even at international borders
No ID checks when buying guns, plastic explosives or weapons grade Anthrax spores

I’ll happily admit that #3 is ridiculous hyperbole, but it’s also a logical consequence of there being no official surveillance at all.

What we have in the US right now is limited official surveillance. Maybe the limits are a little to broad, but that’s better than either extreme.

12

Strongly disagree. This can be and has been abused. Old J. Edgar didn’t think twice about watching both friends and foes and digging up dirt on both.

13

Don’t remember my scores anymore…been a while.

XT checks disagree. Most of my reasons have already been covered in the thread.

-XT

14

Strongly disagree. Presumed innocent etc…

15

Disagree.

I took the Political Compass again recently and decided it was wholly worthless. I think for the average person it will give an accurate reading but for anyone who tends to understand the deeper meaning in things, which I hope is most of you, it really just doesn’t fit.

But anyways, we should always be distrustful of government power. That doesn’t mean we need to go overboard over small wielding of law enforcement power, but we do need to keep government in line.

16

last time i took the test, i think i got about a (5, -6) or so. haven’t the chance to re-take it just now.

strongly disagree.

this statement seems equivalent to the statement “it is always wrong to break the law.” the reason i say that is because if you do the right thing, you’d hope not to be punished for it, but if you do the right thing and it’s still against the law, you will be punished. if your actions are always closely watched, anything you do that breaks a law could be conceivably punished, so in order to believe in this axiom, you’d have to believe in one of the following:

  1. it is always wrong to break the law.
    or:
  2. there is nothing bad about punishing someone unjustly.

since i think (2) is self-evidently wrong, i’ll say it must be equivalent to (1). since i disagree wholly with (1), i strongly disagree with this axiom.

17

I think it is right to question the way surveilance is used even if you are not a wrongdoer. But that surveillance is a good thing. It is up to laws and juries to decide when surveilance evidence should or should not be taken into account. But I liked the fact that when in a UK city, if I were murdered there would be many different views of my actions and my assailent’s actions recorded on different video surveilance equipment. I believe that information would make the murderer more likely get caught, and show an incidental innocent person was innocent, much more reliably than eye witnesses would.

18

-3, -2.8 or something like that.

Disagree, as explained by many. As the OP mentions, the question is about “worry”, not about whether or not we’re actually being hurt. And a reasonable level of “worrying” about what the government is up to is healthy.

19

I would say worrying is the negative poor relation of showing due concern. Showing due concern is good, whilst worrying is just a few steps away from buying a tinfoil hat. This may be just sematics, but I feel a worried person runs away, whilst a concerened person trys to affect change.

20

-3, -5. Disagree.

I agree with the reasons that everyone else has posted above, so instead of repeating them, I’ll add a new one:

More surveillance makes it easier to enforce all laws, whether those laws are just or unjust. I believe limiting surveillance is a vital check on the government’s power - they can pass laws against drug use, or sodomy, or smoking, or buying porn, or whatever, but there isn’t much they can do to stop them. People who don’t take part in victimless crimes, but still disagree with the laws, can take some comfort in the fact that they’re mostly unenforceable. Increasing surveillance would make it easier to enforce laws that shouldn’t be enforced at all.