Who are you impressing with selected passages: are you practicing for a job in redaction?
Obama in 2007:
[The Bush] administration also puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand.
Obama in 2013
You can’t have 100 per cent security and also then have 100 per cent privacy and zero inconvenience. We’re going have to make some choices as a society.
How am I supposed to know? I do understand that that’s the general concept.
Agreed but I’m alway suprised how old that argument is. In England in 1657 they enacted state run post offices, in effect a central place to observe and open mail, as it was the “best means to discover and prevent many dangerous and wicked designs which have been and are daily contrived against the peace and welfare of the Commonwealth”
I’m quoting the link you put forward as evidence of "“dozen of convictions of Muslim extremists on the back of data-based Intel” to show that it actually isn’t any such thing.
I take it that you don’t actually have anything to support your earlier statement, and it was just conjecture on your part?
Except you are cherry picking the information you want to get out to the masses, why would you do that?
You ought to be telling everyone to go read the links instead of coming off like a know it all by selecting certain passages and trying to discredit the entire source as more of the same. It simply isn’t true.
Is the debate “These methods are reprehensible, and cannot be permitted in a free society unless they work”? Its a bit like the debate over the use of “enhanced interrogation”. If something is morally unacceptable, whether or not it is practical doesn’t enter into it.
The opposition to use of torture in interrogation is not only due to “These methods are reprehensible, and cannot be permitted in a free society unless they work” but also due to unforeseen, unpredictable and volatile consequences it brings. For example, giving Catholic Church so much clout over children is not only because a priest will eff with their minds but because the context is being created where they will eff them literally, for decades and nothing can prevent it.
Let’s see. Broken Briton makes a pretty bold claim:
“Certainly in the UK, we have seen dozen of convictions of Muslim extremists on the back of data-based Intel.”
I ask for a cite, and get a wiki link with no actual context added. So I go to that link, and come back with a set of examples showing that actually it doesn’t seem to support that claim
Now if you’ve actually got something to show that he was right, and that in the UK dozens of convictions (hell, I’ll settle for the base minimum, 24) have been obtained through such intel, please feel free to chime in. I’d actually be relieved to hear that some good is coming out of this snooping. But failing that, I reckon I’m well within rights to state my scepticism.
I look at it the other way around: if it is practical, whether or not it is morally unacceptable doesn’t enter into it. This capability exists and will continue to exist. Governments will use it because they can always justify (to themselves) needing to use it.
I think the questions to ask right now should be along the lines of:
- What safeguards are in place to prevent abuse of this system?
- Are these safeguards sufficient?
- How can we ensure that the safeguards cannot be compromised?
If we adopt your wholly utilitarian approach then your questions no longer matter. There is no “abuse” of the system if the method works. And you only know that when the results are in, yes?
If I have Hakim al-Terror in my custody, and the bomb is in the daycare center, and will go off in one minute unless I can get him to tell me The Code, will I torture him for that information, knowing full well my actions are immoral and reprehensible. Probably. If it is the daycare center where my own child is? Hugh Betcha, I will get post-modern on his ass.
But either way, whether it works or no, I am guilty.
As with everything else, there is way too much noise from people playing politics, rather than a realistic assessment of the currently lawful activities by the U.S. security apparatus. Those still crying over Obama winning a second term are going muster all the phony outrage in their souls to bitch about something they would have supported had Romney won. Just more political hypocrisy and straight up lying.
Since Obama is the president, what we need is 100% transparency from all our security organizations. No secrets, and all intelligence operations must be explained, in advance, in all the major news outlets. Enemies of the U.S. will surely respect this amazing transformation and abandon all plans to do us harm. When the next attack happens, Americans will chalk it up to the price we pay for our “liberty” and Obama will be celebrated as a champion of the American way.
Supposed “whistleblowers” like Manning and Snowden aren’t heroes of the digital age. They are criminals who betrayed their country.
ETA: Gathering phone records doesn’t affect anyone’s “liberty” in any way, shape or form. Seriously, Americans need to grow up.
.. is an opinion. Be nice to put it to a vote. Actually, at this point a non-military court.
Which raises some interesting questions. Does he get to decide for us what kind of world we should live in? But more importantly, what will the net effect of his protest be? Will the government now work even harder to protect us from finding stuff out? I mean, sometimes the strong actions we take end up having the opposite result from what we seek, has he considered that his impetuosity could well, in the short term at least, make things worse?
This reminds me of a joke about two shtetl Jews who are arrested by the Cheka and are sentenced to be shot. As they are standing against the wall, about to be executed, one of them curses out the executioners. The other says “Moishe, stop it, you will just make things worse.”
He’s promoting a debate on something the US gov doesn’t want people to know about far less have a debate on.
That’s about it, isn’t it: don’t shoot the messenger, etc.
It is always better to have the choice than to have the choice made for you, always.
Why can’t they be both?
Lots of people like to talk about civil disobedience; many of them forget that Thoreau went to jail.
My country right or wrong.
The US is now so rogue, it sets a whole new definition.