Slashdot Mirror
Some Rights May Have To Be 'Eroded' For Safety
Turn-X Alphonse writes "The BBC is reporting on a speech given by the head of MI5 in the UK. Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller claims in the future some civil rights may have to 'erode', in order to keep everyone in the country safe from terrorism." From the article: "MI5 has recently let it be known that it is in favour of making telephone intercept evidence admissible in court. Previously the intelligence and security services had expressed concern such that evidence might reveal operational details. Meanwhile, Home Secretary Charles Clarke has been calling for EU states to keep mobile phone and e-mail records for longer, to help fight terrorism and crime."
This all boils down to one thing: lack of personal responsibility.
:-(
What ever happened to it? So many of our problems are rooted in everyone's attempt to pass the buck: the populace's willingness to give up civil liberties in order to get a nanny state in return, the abundance of frivolous lawsuits, corporate scandals, twelve step programs, people who constantly bitch about politicians but never vote, people who bitch about their jobs being offshored but don't do anything to increase the value of their own career, Karl Rove, etc, etc.... I just don't understand what has happened in my lifetime.
My father grew up within a society that valued "being a man": being responsible for your own station in life and your family's welfare, admitting your mistakes, and genuinely trying to be honorable/noble. If we had more personal responsbility in this world governments wouldn't be able to get away with attitudes like this.
Where's Sartre when you need him?
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
In the US (I'm unfamiliar with the UK), our rights are not granted by King nor State edict. They're inherent ("God-given") to every human born, US citizen or not. Our Constitution provides our government certain specific powers to appropriate certain specific rights of ours onto them.
Reducing inherent rights is an impossibility in the States. It is tyranny to trample on our right to be secure in our person and property when no warrant has been issued for a specific investigation into a specific crime.
Letting government infringe on our inherent freedom from witch hunts is scary. I know it is happening, but I'm not understanding how it protects us. Real criminals know the law and can get around all these government intrusions. That leaves only 'innocent' citizens as the target. With so many vague laws criminalizing behavior, you may be committing a crime without realizing it. Let your elected officials keep a log, just in case you forget to notify them of the crime you unknowingly commit.
It is unjust and unacceptable, and I am unwilling to be part of it. Should I mimic criminals now to keep myself safe from [i]government[/i]? Disposable phones, anonymous mailers, and all that?
Be sure terrorists already are safe from these injustices.
It may be very hard to stop someone who wants to blow up a train and is convinced it is the will of their God to do so. Security should be increased and anything in the power of public utilities like train stations and airports should be done to prevent terrorism.
However, I urge anyone reading to fight the erosion of their civil liberties in a so-called trade for their "security". I'm especially worried about the UK putting forward an equivalent of the PATRIOT Act because if they do, it sets a precident for all of their allies and will likely put pressure on them to do the same (which includes Canada, where I live).
I know I'm preaching to the converted here on Slashdot, but I wish there was a way I could make people see what we do: that the PATRIOT Act in the US allows the Government can monitor an individual's web surfing records, use roving wiretaps to monitor phone calls made by individuals "proximate" to the primary person being tapped, access Internet Service Provider records, monitor the private records of people involved in legitimate protests, spy on suspected computer trespassers (not just terrorist suspects) without a court order, and most concerningly, allows law enforcement to issue search warrants that do not force them to tell the subject that he was searched. (Source: EFF)
The word needs to be brought out to the streets.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Technology changes the balance between victim and attacker. Fact. Occasionally, it is prudent to create new laws to redress the balance. At first, breaking into a computer wasn't a crime. The laws in many countries decide (rightfully, imo) to make this an offense.
The problem comes when the law makers don't really think through the consquences of the laws they write. The start with the assumption that criminals are dumb. Most of the time this is actually a fairly good assumption. However, it is a mistake to right off all criminals as being stupid. The people behind 9/11 were certainly not dumb and it's these type of people we are drafting laws to stop.
. The first question a legislator should be asking themselves when faced with a security decision is "How could an attacker make this law useless". On the subject of wiretapping the first thing that springs to mind is encrypting the connection. How can you wiretap an encrypted connection? Of course, they could try and use RIPA to get the keys off you but RIPA is badly drafted (as I discuss here) and can be circumvented easily provided you use a signed Diffie-Helman key exchange to determine the session key.
Give the fact that the law can be dodged completely it only serves to make us all less secure. It removes a check and balance from our society and opens up to abuses by the Police and other government organsiations. (As an aside, Law should be drafted in that they should fail in the safest possible way when being used by a corrupt Police force).
I'll finish this comment with a point I feel is important. In July, fifty or so people were killed by terrorists. That was the first major terrorist attack since the IRA declared a cease-fire and it was alost the biggest terrorist act in (recent) British history. As much as it is a tragedy that those lives were lost, is it worth changing the relationship between citizen and state for the sake of fifty dead? The same can also be said about 9/11 or the madrid bombings. Yes four thousand people were killed in 9/11 but four times as many die per year in US due to gun fatalities. In terms of a threat to the average citizen of any particular state, the threat posed by terrorism is right down in the noise level. It is my belief that a greater threat to our liberty is posed by the onerous legislation being passed worldwide than by terrorism.
Simon.
negligence..
Look at the patRIOT act of all things. It gives government carte blanche for whatever they want, AND your not allowed to even know about the laws. How can this prevent terrorism? Eroding away liberties and personal rights of privacy and general freedoms will never solve terrorism, it wont even make a dent in it.
It is sad how easily people in the government concede defeat to the terrorists. One of the things that define modern, western democracies is the freedoms it gives its people. When the terrorists see that they have succesfully destroyed those freedoms, they must feel very succesful.
I admit that governments need to make a compromise, but they shouldn't so easily show it off.
"Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
"1984" could be a reality. "Brazil" could be a reality.
Don't people realize that part of the cost of freedom is by definition risk of being hurt.
Fear is what drives us to give up liberty, and it is only fear that we have to fight. Fear is worse than death, beause it traps us in our minds, afraid to move, afraid to live.
If we want to represent freedom to the world, I believe we ought to stop being afraid and stop lashing out in fear.
If we give up our freedom, doesn't that mean the terrorists are winning?
Why can't anyone see the truth here?
The truth is: we must do our best with the knowledge we have, defend ourselves as best we can, and let go of our fear.
Raydude
But we are more intelligent than those evil terrorists.
Instead of letting them destroy our way of life, we destroy it ourselves.
Thanks for your insightful comments Dame Edna...
So you don't think the government, as it stands, is capable of crushing whatever individuals it chooses?
If you have no freedom at the end of the day, who cares if you are 'safe'.
But of course no government would think that way, by design they are out to control the public and absorb their rights and freedoms.
Our founders here in the US knew this all too well, and tried to prevent it from happening *again*.
They failed of course, but they were right.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I think we've lost the plot somewhere along the way. People have no clue what a government is supposed to do and not do. The government is not here to babysit your children and make sure they don't hear naughty words or see a boob. The government is not here to enforce your religious views on everyone who doesn't subscribe to your religion, whether you're a majority or not. The government is not here to guarantee a right to profit for corporations. The government is not here to keep track of what everyone does day and night in order to prevent any possible crime or terrorism. In general, IT IS NOT THE GOVERNMENT'S JOB TO CATCH CRIMINALS! That is a SECONDARY function to what governments should be doing. A government is supposed to protect the freedom of the people. i.e. life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. A government is supposed to protect the people from external threats, i.e. terorrism, war, but not at the expense of the freedom of its people. A government is supposed to maintain order, and prevent chaos from threatening people, i.e. catch criminals, prevent theft, prevent murder, etc. A government is supposed to ensure basic quality of living and services, i.e. infrastructure: roads, electricity, water, sewage. All this nonsense about giving up civil liberties to "prevent terrorism" is counterintuitive. You are there to ensure liberty, not remove it. Removing liberty all the time to prevent terrorism some of the time is not a positive net change for the people. Ensuring liberty is your primary function, if you are working against that, there is a problem with the plan or the execution. There needs to be another solution. Restricting freedoms of people who are not themselves the threat IS NOT AN OPTION. Restricting freedom of people to live, marry, immigrate, visit in hospitals, raise families, and be happy because your religious beliefs do not agree with it is not a valid action. There needs to be a threat to others in order for freedoms to be taken away. Claiming it is a threat because "think of the children" is a fallacy. You are responsible for your children. The government is not here to impose your moral values on others. It is not the government's job to instill morality in your children, that is your job as a parent. Try living up to your end of the bargain. If I had one wish in all the world, it would be for an empty habitable space to found my own society, based on reason instead of stupidity, with a design towards reducing corruption. The mult-branch thing was a good idea but didn't cut it. Plurality vote gravitates towards fewer parties. Lifetime politicians who have more interest in their private finances and companies than their jobs is a problem. We need to fix this but the systems around have sunk in and fossilized. There's no way to actively remove them, not even by force anymore. Revolution is virtually impossible in the age of modern weaponry. There is nowehre else to go. Any initiative that makes serious progress will be sabotaged by some existing faction in power, either political, religious, or corporate. I've really lost hope, so I guess do whatever you want.
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
If you think the food is crap, then you're not drinking enough ;-)
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
This is an extremely common attitude among people. And they have absolutely no idea as to why that argument is wrong on so many levels.
An independent film maker I know once told me that people:
Don't want to take responsibility for themselves.
Want to be told what to do and how to live
in other words, many people want to be slaves. They just won't call it that. I poo-poo'd it. But now, I' m being to see that maybe he was right.
Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
With friends like the Bush administration running things into the ground, who needs enemies?
8==8 Bones 8==8
"We are fighting a war on terrorism to protect our rights and freedoms, right and freedoms we must give up, to help fight the war on terrorism, to protect our rights and freedoms." - Source Unknown
The most disturbing thing about that quote is that most people I've recited it to think I made it up and don't see how it's relevant.
More amazing to me is that the response has been so irrational and disproportionate.
As bad as terrorism may be, the number of deaths due to it are dwarfed when compared to those due to poverty (or even just those due to preventable traffic accidents).
I feel for those who've died and lost loved ones due to terrorism but it is absurd to spend so much money, so severely erode civil rights and to live in fear because of a relatively small amount of terrorism.
I'd much rather keep my rights and have all of the 'homeland security' money spent to combat foreign and domestic poverty (or, perhaps, just a working emergency response system that could deal with natural disasters, industrial accidents and terrorist acts).
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
---- William Pitt, 1783Joanna Baillie, Basil (act III, sc. 1, l. 151)
"Fear is not the natural state of civilized people."
Aung San Suu Kyi
"Be as beneficent as the sun or the sea, but if your rights as a rational being are trenched on, die on the first inch of your territory."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
First, I think that there are few that would argue that we don't need a government. Even Thomas Jefferson ("That government governs best that governs least.") obviously believed in some form of government, and our national structure owes much to his writing.
IMO, we need a strong government, but we also need strong civil liberties. These are not at odds with eachother. Only a weak government would feel the need to infringe upon these liberties.
A strong government exists to build a strong social infrastructure. This can include such things as commercial infrastructure (highways), information infrastructure (my county owns a fiberoptical network through which I get telephone and internet service provided by my choice of private companies, and besides, what else do you call the public school system), economic infrastructure (protecting the freemarket from the likes of Microsoft), etc. We also need a strong judiciary, and many other portions of the government.
Whether we need wealth distribution programs is a subject for another debate. Personally I think we do need some form of wealth redistribution even if it is only an attempt to help make sure that everyone has the opportunity to get a quality college education and narrowly scoped to achieve that end. But that is beside the point.
When government starts to infringe on our civil liberties as a way of keeping us safe, we are sliding back to the circumstances which spawned our great republic, where fundamental rights (habeas corpous, trial by jury) were suspended in the Colonies in order to help maintain security. Already, the case of Jose Padilla threatens to at least partially overturn the right to a jury trial and the right to habeas petitions.
Welcome to the world of 1770.....
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
One blatant example of poverty causing death just came up last week: Hurricane Katrina. The majority of the men, women, and children who didn't leave New Orleans because they couldn't leave. The poverty rate there is 2-3 times the national average and many people in that group don't have cars.
Now, we're trying to bus them out of the hurricane area. But, where were the buses before the hurricane? We certainly knew well ahead of the time that level of a storm would devastate New Orleans. If leaving the area was the best option, then why wasn't this option given to the poorest citizens before disaster struck? The answer has everything to do with money and the fact that they don't have it. Certainly, the city, state, or federal government could have spent a little money to use local school buses and move those people out. I have a sneaking suspicion where that money actually went...
Karl von Clausewitz is perhaps best known from his statement: "War is merely the continuation of policy by other means." This oft quoted statement was part of a dialectic argument set forth in Hegelian terms to examine the properties of war. IIRC von Clausewitz also was the first to characterize an oppresive, desparate state as insidiously furthering their power by pointing to an enemy without. Declaring war on the enemy without allowed a state to cast blame on the enemy for the shortcomings of the state within. In our present case the war on terrorism allows the state to truncate our civil liberties.
The interplay between the rights of the individual and the security of the collective is an ancient argument. In the west Jeremy Bentham presented the struggle in terms of Utilitarianism, "the greatest good for the greatest number". (I've had a fondness for Bentham since, as a schoolboy, reading he was stuffed and sat at the entrance to his club.) At the other end of the stick were the Romantics, best known, perhaps, in the writings of Jean-Jacuees Rousseau, a Calvin in Rebellion (and in my opinion a second rater), and F. Nietzsche.
The argument is ancient and each of us has to reexamine it to find our own place.Good luck with that.:)
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi -0509100027sep10,1,5918883.story?coll=chi-newsnati onworld-hed
Shows that the US is not that far behind, as an appeals court says it is legal to hold US citizens forever without trial, as part of the Presidential powers.
I think the courts and our political leaders need to pick up a dictionary.
Fascism: A social and political ideology with the primary guiding principle that the state or nation is the highest priority, rather than personal or individual freedoms.
I believe we had a world war over this.
As the old saying goes, those who trade in liberty for security deserve neither.
How many times will the governing officials tell us this old lie that our liberties are blocking their jobs and they get away with it? Could they post examples rather than ringing the old fear mongering bell?
Would the tragedy on 9/11 not have happened? I thought the whole impetus and sudden motivation for increased airport security was 9/11 itself. Not a sudden decrease in liberties (fuck the so-called Patriot act).
How about the London Bombings? How would decreased liberties have stopped them where over 15,000 cameras in London couldn't?
It is easy to hold up Liberty when in good times, but how in the world are we to "teach" the rest of countries Democracy/Liberty when our goverments perservere to constantly restrict ours?
Now, this is going to be the most cold-hearted assessment of all to most people - but how many people died in the London Bombings (or even 9/11) versus how many people die of heart attacks each year?
Should we outlaw McDonalds now? Wouldn't outlawing fast food save more lives?
Because restricted freedoms affect nearly 100% of the population minus a lucky few at the top of the hierarchy.
Facist crap. The UK security service always says we must erode liberties because it is convenient for them to know everything about peoples activities. Then its just a fishing trip with key word searches or voice recog of keywords to try to get leads. Simpler than real security work, cheaper too. In the end no security service really trusts the population it watches and so becomes more desperate to know everything about you.
Here is a case where the Administration argues that an American citizen, detained on American soil far from combat operations can be held indefinitely without any sort of trial, and the 4th circuit just agreed.
This means no trial by jury, no habeas petition, no access to a lawyer, merely because the government says so. Furthermore the 4th circuit stated that they were going to apply the Hamdi standard here and state that anyone accused of being an enemy combattant might have the burden or proof in proving that he is not, perhaps against a military tribunal. This is very scary indeed.
To see where this leads, I would direct everyone to read Scalia's dissent in Hamdi (in which Stevens joined). He states that the Hamdi standard would lead to an attrition of our due process rights as American citizens. And after reading the 4th circuit's opinion, I have decided that Scalia and Stevens are clearly right here...
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
As bad as terrorism may be, the number of deaths due to it are dwarfed when compared to those due to poverty (or even just those due to preventable traffic accidents).
More people died in the US in September 2001 from auto accidents than from acts of international terrorism.
More amazing to me is that the response has been so irrational and disproportionate.
You're right. Lets send the army to Detroit in our War against Automobiles....
I'd much rather keep my rights and have all of the 'homeland security' money spent to combat foreign and domestic poverty (or, perhaps, just a working emergency response system that could deal with natural disasters, industrial accidents and terrorist acts).
If we had a concept of global social justice and self-determination for all peoples, I think that the Terrorist criminals would lose their support base pretty quickly.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
GP: An exploding subway is annoying and scary, but it's not a serious threat to our way of life.
You: And neither is a collapsing skyscraper?
No.
A collapsing skyscraper does not fundamentally change our lives. Our reactions after the fact changes our lives. The current administration have done everything in their power to convert America from a free democracy to a police state. Just this morning, I read that Bush has been given the right to arrest a US citizen and hold them indefinitely without actually charging them with a crime . My god, that does more damage to 100% of our democracy than the downing of one building and the deaths of 0.001% of our population.
I propose that cannibal child molestors not be arrested nor prosecuted. After all, children die all the time. And canibals only eat a few every year. What the hell? It's not a serious threat to our way of life.
The problem with that statement is that you assume the grandparent post is saying that we shouldn't go after terrorists. That's not what I read at all. What I read is that we shouldn't be going around, removing freedoms from average citizens, and completely restructuring society for the worse over such a small threat.
To use your example above, it'd be like addressing cannibal child molestation by saying that only robots can take care of children because robots can't molest them or eat them. Screw all the normal people who want access to their children. They could be cannibal child molesters. Better to be safe than sorry!
If you don't think that radical islamic fundamentalists will take away your precious freedoms, then you're sorely ignorant of modern and recent history.
So far, no radical islamic fundamentalists have taken away any of our freedoms. The people that have been taking away our freedoms are American citizens that we've elected to high offices in the Presidency and Congress.
One needs look back no further than Afghanistan circa 5 years ago to find evidence of the hideous brutality of the terrorists' intent.
And now we are replacing our democracy with a police state. The Republican's view of America's future doesn't look that different from the terrorist's view.
The sore of islamic ignorance has been allowed to fester for forty years, unchecked and fueled by proceeds from drug trade and oil sale. Now, they've brought the fight to the Western World and we can either respond with fight or surrender. Radical islam is a threat to our way of life, even if cowards and fools such as you choose ignorance over courage.
The sore of republican ignorance has been allowed to fester for thirty-five years, unchecked and fueled by proceeds from drug trade and oil sale. Now, they've brought the fight to the middle east and we can either respond with fight or retreat. Radical christianity is a threat to our way of life, even if cowards and fools such as you choose ignorance over courage.
In times of chrises, freedoms need to be maximized, not minimized. For example, what if every airplaine seat had a 6 inch knife strapped to it, do you think for a minute there could be a repeat of 9/11? What if people were encouraged to posess guns resopnsibily for personal protection, do you think Columbine could have even started? What if peacfull people were able to cross borders freely, do you think it would be easier for terrorists to use established routes to smuggle themselves in thru the back country, in fact all our "security" didn't stop them from getting in with letitimate visas. What if drugs were legalized, do you think gangsters and drug lords would get the opportunity of making millions on the black market, while driving the problem underground?
The fact is, individuals can take measures to protect themselves from all these problems, but it is 1000 times harder to protect yourselves from a government that is out of controll. In times of chrises, freedoms need to be maximized, not minimized? Individuals don't need safety, they need controll - when the later happens, the former takes care of itself. Without the later, the former can be revoked at any time.
I agree that there's no justification for moving more towards a police state world.
But how about trying to justify your points, preferably by means other than 1) quoting your beloved Constitution as if it were god-given 2) quoting Founding Fathers as if they were gods.
"What a complete idiot" is just quite a rough thing to say about anyone without justifying your point of view.
This is obvious, and well-understood by most intelligent people.
However, deaths due to terrorism (even now) are such a microscopically small percentage of the total that it's either a weak excuse or shortsighted to the point of blindness to restrict the rights of the entire population to counter it.
For example, I did a little research a while back, and did you know that in the UK you're more likely to be hit by lightning than die as a result of terrorism this year? Even after the recent two rounds of tube/bus bombings?
Where are the laws mandating we all wear grounded tinfoil helmets or thick rubber soles on our shoes?
If we aren't prepared to accept controls on car usage, gun ownership (in the US) or something as solveable as modest tax increases to fight poverty, why the hell should we accept controls on something which is (obsessive media fixation aside) pathetically less likely to hurt or kill us?
The only reason is people making a knee-jerk reaction like your own, based solely on the perception of danger, not on the actual danger itself.
Responsible government should take the long view, and attempt to educate the population out of any shortsighted and nanny-state demands they make.
Instead, your current administration (and now, apparently, ours) has merely frightened people even more, and used the situation to push through the whole boatload of privacy- and liberty-infringing laws and regulations they've been collectively wetting themselves over since they first got into power.
Terrorist actions cause deaths that happen in clumps, and this is what makes them scary. If all the car- or gun-related deaths per year happened on the same day, cars and guns would be banned the day after.
Basically, get a fucking grip, and make informed decisions to protect your country's future. Don't make knee-jerk demands and rationalise them into sounding sensible later.
(And apologies - this last bit isn't aimed at you personally, but at everyone who would trade "a little essential liberty for temporary safety". I think we all know what FDR had to say about them...)
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
My point is that just because Franklin said something doesn't make it the gospel truth. The moment I saw the original post on the Slashdot front page, I knew somebody would whip out the old Franklin quote. This time around, though, I hope people really think about the implications rather than just use it as a bludgeoning instrument for proving their point.
Thanks for being about the only voice among the masses that seems to be thinking rationally about this! I've been wondering for a long time about the obsession people have with the Constitution and the Founding Fathers.
I think that it is extremely important to extend our public school system to ensure that every American of every social class can afford a quality college education. This is the primary form of wealth redistribution that I speak of. Personally, I think that affirmative action is a crutch that gets in the way of this goal and so I think it needs to go. The reason for both positions are the same.
30 years ago, when affirmative action was still new, the US economy was primarily a manufacturing economy, and the separation between white and blue collar workers was often one of education. Trying to help stir up the pot made sense at the time in terms of building a just social system.
However, today the economy is different. The use is leaking manufacturing jobs to just about everywhere in the world, and those that are left are increasingly automated, and our economy is now a tech economy. The difference between an entry level job and a career is now the difference of education, and our economy needs a highly educated work force. Merely saying "we want people to have the same shot at an education regardless of race" is counterproductive here because we should be saying "We want *everyone* to have the opportunity to have a quality education." This is the only way our economy will continue to grow.
That is what's happening to the US. You have to do it backwards, so that you afford people choice of the laws while maintaining citizenship.
I am all for federalism but I think that there need to be limits and I think that the federal government needs to have some authority to handle common problems, such as air pollution. I think that there needs to be a mechanism in place for the states to work together to come up with solutions to these non-local problems. These powers were originally laid out in the Constitution, but since the industrial revolution a hundred years later, we need additional powers. These powers should include some environmental regulatory powers.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
or Kerry; do you really think his administration would have behaved differently? Especially given that they'd have essentially the same senate, congress, and supreme court to deal with? Guantanamo Bay is the fault of every citizen who was stupid enough to fall into the two-party trap.
Yes you should have financial liberty, but liberty comes at a price, and profit should be a privilege and not something people feel they are entitlted to by birth. Too many people have an sense of entitlement to profit.
I suppose the ability to profit, but I think we have to profit in ways which are sustainable. We should focus on corporate responsibility, fiscal responsibility in government, and financial responsibility for consumers. We all must be responsible as humans.
This means there needs to be some rules, and no I do not think we have to give up civil liberties. Most of the time people give up civil liberties to the nanny state along with their financial liberties because both are connected. If you lose freedom of speech in some cases you lose the freedom to profit off your speech. If you lose your civil rights then the result in the long term becomes a monarchy.
If this is going to be the case, get rich now while you still can and prepare for lords and surfs, because we are headed straight for the dark ages.
for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither." -Thomas Jefferson
In the USA we are losing our constitution as well. The constitution is a piece of paper which has the value of toilet tissue. The real constitution is money.
A perfect example can be found here U.S. Can Confine Citizens Without Charges, Court Rules
Face it, the USA and the UK are a monarchy, or at least a monarchy of sorts. They always have been, voting never had anything to do with who wins or loses elections except perhaps on the local levels. He who controls the voting machine controls the elections, he who controls the money controls the voting machines, and the banks control the money.
If you want freedom, become a banker, become a stock broker, major in economics or business, get your MBA, and join the workforce. If you want to be a surf or a peasant, then keep losing your job and looking for new ones every few years.
Times are changing, and civil liberties are dead, accept it or move to another country.
Maybe it's because they set up a society and culture which has (sorry, had) become the envy of the world. Importantly, the Founding Fathers' legacy has already endured wars, cultural upheaval and technological innovation the like of which they could never have even dreamed of.
:-), or at least they have made me think about some things, like democracy (and why it's not a panacea).
Maybe. Of course it might also be a sum of a number of fairly random factors, including relative isolation from other countries, the cultural heritage of the British empire and complex international politics that just might have favored United States, perhaps because of a common friend or enemy or resources that someone needed.
I'm a bit wary about giving all credit to Founding Fathers, "superior" culture (really I think you should admit there isn't very much such a thing as the American culture, because you are a very young people in a worldwide scale, what you have is still mostly British culture).
Having said that, I actually must admit I have learned many things from what your Founding Fathers wrote (and I believe that puts me in a position that few of those that swear by the FF's name have, having actually read a lot about them
It gets worse:
"Living in London and with sons using the Tube daily, my human right to be free of worry of them being blown to bits takes precedence over everything."
How idiotic do you have to be to post that? Apparently "CC, London, UK" is willing to sacrifice human rights in order to reduce his risk of death by a miniscule amount. Even if terrorist attacks manage one a year, he is still 10 times more likely to die of drowning than by being blown up. 100 times more likely to die by being run over while walking to the tube station than by being blown up.
Ok you are technically mostly correct in your post, however you seem to overlook one thing.
In order to affect change via democracy at least 51% of the population must be intelligent enough to vote so as to actually affect that change.
My experience of my fellow human beings does *not* support this as a realistic possibility.
Most people, well over the 51% they require, are sufficiently docile, sheeplike suckers that they actually believe the advertising in the media which very effectively instructs them on how to spend their vote-money.
If the 'collective media' wanted to direct the vote one way or another, they could.
What we see happening, however, is increasing numbers of elections being almost dead heats. The elected governments look increasingly weak. Weak government helps oh lets see now, corporations?
As things stand, voting by intelligent people who actually think about the issues is so ineffectual that there have to be better ways to affect change in the system.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
> pink flamingos on their lawns, I can prevent it by living on 100 acres away from nutcases.
And if you can't afford 100 acres?
If your system only works for the rich, it's not a very useful system.
> Before I enter into an agreement with you, I'll want a contract. We'd
> agree on an arbitration system and a neutral mediator. Why is government needed?
Enforcement.
If we enter into a contract, agree on Bob the Arbitrator, and then I break the contract and tell you and Bob to go screw yourselves, what do you do?
What do you do if I'm a huge company, and effectively beyond the reach of your local volunteer police force? Or just willing to shoot you all and cover everything up? (Something that has been happening with some regularity to Amazonian tribes in remote, relatively lawless regions.)
Somebody is always the biggest, toughest group around, able to enforce their will by sheer power. Isn't it better if that (inevitable) ruler is one who needs to show at least the pretense of working for the good of the people, rather than it being an out-right dictatorship?
Erode this. And the horse you rode in on, bitch.
As a taxpaying citizen, if my hired protectors can't protect me without infringing my rights, then they're fucking FIRED. The People can find someone else who will. These assholes forget who they're working for. The government is for the people, by the people. Their right to govern comes from MY consent to be governed. Do the job you're given, or get the fuck out of the way for someone else who can.
This just pisses me off. Some rights must be eroded? Bullshit!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Say what you will about the whole "judicial activist" canard, and originalism, and all that garbage. I hear a lot of fellow liberals give Scalia a hard time, but I read his dissents, and I can only conclude that this guy's on our side. We need more Scalias. (Roberts is no Scalia - unfortunately. Neither is Thomas.)
I actually agree with you. He gets flack for some of his views on some issues (most notably abortion). But his overall judicial philosophy is good and he has a strong sense of preserving civil liberties in general. In Hamdi, he and Stevens were alone in attempting to strike down the application of Ex Parte Quirin.
As for Thomas, he was the *only* justice in Hamdi who thought the government should be able to detain Hamdi indefinitely without a trial.
The Hamdi case is actually quite interesting. It is anyone's guess what they will do in Padilla when it gets there. One gets the impression that you had a 4-4-1 split in the court where 4 felt that Hamdi had limited Habeas rights and limited due process rights, 4 who felt that the detention was unlawful, and 1 one was willing to hand the gov't a blank check (that was Thomas) in the matter. The middle 4 eventually split 2-2 with Suiter and Ginsberg joining the plurality but stating that they did not think that the detention was legal.
In this case, we only have 8 remaining justices at the moment, and if Sandra Day O'Connor abstains, then the 4 which held that Hamdi's detention was unlawful could hold the day in Padilla, seriously weakening the precident. Furthermore it is unclear how Roberts (if he is confirmed) would vote.
I am hopeful that Padilla will be overturned, but not entirely optimistic. With two vacancies, such a complex decision could turn quite quickly. The fact remains that our remaining civil liberties are directly threatened at the moment, and we must wait to see what happens at the Supreme Court level.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Bad analogy - voting does not result in broken bones, ragged skin and blood poueing from your hands.
I agree with the GP - don't vote for the lesser of two evils, vote against the two party system by choosing an outsider.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
"Furthermore the 4th circuit stated that they were going to apply the Hamdi standard here and state that anyone accused of being an enemy combattant might have the burden or proof in proving that he is not, perhaps against a military tribunal. This is very scary indeed."
If you ever wondered how Padilla ended up in a Navy brig in South Carolina its precisely so he would be in the jurisdiction of the 4th circuit. It is the most right wing circuit in the U.S. which is why the Bush administration does everything it can to get all its cases heard there. They are using it and will continue to use it in their attempt to eviscerate civil liberties in this country and to continue to expand the powers of the executive to near dictatorial status.
For whetever reason the Supreme Court has consistently avoided making a definitive decision in Padilla's case and let Padilla rot in jail, each day setting precedent for abandoning an American citizens most basic right to due process. Padilla may be a complete low life, and a terrorist, but if he is the way this country works is you file charges, you make sure he has access to a lawyer, you give him his day in court with a presumption of innocence, and you let a jury of his peers decide, not a stacked military tribunal.
Unfortunately when this outlandish 4th circuit decision reaches the Supreme Court on appeal, this time, it will be a court with two new Bush appointments both of which will probably be right wing. This time they may well uphold the 4th circuit opinion and effectively turn the U.S. in to a police state and give the executive dictatorial powers. One can only hope that the 2 people Bush appoints will end up being true conservatives, and not far right Fascists, when they are actually sitting on the court. A true conservative would never never allow this savaging of basic due process civil liberties. A far right Fascist will think giving these new sweeping powers to the executive will be the greatest thing since sliced bread.
@de_machina
"Natural" to whom? There is just as much "jargon" used to write laws as there is used in technical manuals.
Well a lot of that jargon is really just a standard interpretation which has been reached over time as to initially ambigious terms. Once upon a time, people could probably argue a lot over what what was meant by 'negligence' in tort law. Nowadays we all agree that negligence is the failure to exercise the standard of care that would be exercised by a hypothetical reasonable person in roughly similar circumstances.
These things arise, however, because a long time ago some judge was trying to express himself, and had to resort to ordinary English words such as 'negligence' in order to do it. There is no such thing as an unambigious human language. What do you want -- laws written like mathematical proofs? Would that actually aid understanding?
Another problem is that laws tend to be piled on one another. Laws completely superceded by other laws remain on the books, and often aren't noted as such, making someone with less than a intimate knowledge of the situation in question more likely to be completely unaware that the law they are reading was superceded two months ago by H.R. 2341-1231-431.
So I'm guessing you aren't familiar with Shepard's, which basically solves this? Always shepardize your citations, my man.
"Vested" interests are a generally a political issue, NOT a question of Justice.
Perhaps. The point is that they exist, and influence what happens. You can't ignore reality. Additionally, while it's not justice, political concerns are important; laws should strive to serve both justice and the people.
In some places we still have laws on the book that a woman can't drive without a man walking in front of the car with a lantern.
Just because it hasn't been repealed doesn't mean it's still the law. Courts can't change what's in the statute books, but they can still overturn.
I don't beleive that a "just, vibrant society" can exist when the PEOPLE of said society CANNOT KNOW, much less UNDERSTAND the laws they are expected to follow!
This is why it's important for laws to generally reflect social norms. However, most laws are irrelevant to most people. The Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure is a big book. Unless you're trying to federally register a trademark, or you're opposing someone else's, or looking for a way to attack a prima facie case, it is basically irrelevant to you, despite the fact that it influences all sorts of things around you.
Given that you will probably go through life never needing to know or care about it, why should it be understandable to you? If you do suddenly need to know, it's there and you can learn what it says yourself, or ask someone who has made it their business to know.
This is the case with most laws: they exist to do their jobs, not to be clear to random people that, while they are bound by them, never actually even approach the cases in which they matter.
Claiming that they only "need" legal advice AFTER they are in trouble is just more "job security" for lawyers
Of course, I didn't make that claim. I said that people ought to be able to get the advice they need, when they need it. I'm very much in favor of getting advice up front. Then again, lawyers tend to be risk-averse as a group.
I'd say I illustrated above why that is very much indicative of the problem.
Is there anyone who knows everything there is to know about their profession? Probably only people in the most simplistic of fields. You don't see me claiming that we ought to rip out all plumbing and start over fresh just because plumbers that repair household leaks aren't knowledgable enough to single-handedly design a water and sewage system for a major metropolis that incorporates all knowledge of their field.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.