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The Myth of the "Transparent Society"
palegray.net recommends a piece by Bruce Schneier up at Wired. Schneier addresses the central fallacy of the "transparent society" idea promoted by David Brin, and also takes on the flawed arguments that attempt to justify increased government monitoring of citizens. From the article: "If I disclose information to you, your power with respect to me increases. One way to address this power imbalance is for you to similarly disclose information to me. We both have less privacy, but the balance of power is maintained. But this mechanism fails utterly if you and I have different power levels to begin with."
I don't understand why police interviews are not typically recorded. In the UK most interviews have been recorded for a long time -- probably 20 years.
After all..... if the police have nothing to hide, why should they object to interviews being recorded and the defendant getting a copy of the tape?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."
Howard Roark, in The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.
If you haven't read the book, basically the argument that Brin makes is that the complete loss of privacy is inevitable given technology, and thus we shouldn't delude ourselves in thinking we can preserve it, but rather embrace it and fight for transparency on both sides. I don't buy the inevitability argument, and whether he is right or not, the best course of action to preserve balance of power is the same - to fight to preserve privacy on our part, and to increase transparency in the government.
However, there are some more interesting arguments in the book. For example consider CCTV systems. Assuming that their installation is inevitable, he argues that we should fight to make the feeds were available to everyone not just the government. This would empower us to watch the government as much as government is watching us. However, the biggest opposition to this would not be from the government, but from citizens themselves who trust the authorities to watch them, but not their neighbors. This was the attitude he was trying to counter in his book.
Schneier addresses the central fallacy of the "transparent society" idea promoted by David Brin
Brin doesn't suggest that the transparent society is a good thing; he suggests that it's inevitable so we should figure out which kind is the least offensive and make sure that's the one that happens.
Schneier demonstrates why the transparent society is undesirable, but this is not counter to Brin's claim. Schneier fails to offer argument which counters Brin's view of inevitability.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
But once you grant that assertion, it follows - for all slashdot readers who are not self-employed - that your employer should be able to watch you.
I'm not advocating either side here, just pointing out the logical consequences of the position that we should be able to watch them. Whenever someone asks a question and then answers it for you, it's probably not the right answer. The reason that transparency is required with police and other government personnel is not because "they work for us", it's because they are civil servants. They serve all of us, a relationship that is going to be a bit different than your standard employer:employee relationship. Being civil servants, some are granted powers not granted to civilians, and as such those granted power require a higher level of supervision. Hence the transparency.
So your "logical consequences" aren't consequences nor are they logical. There's a huge difference between being a civil servant and working for someone, and you've just discovered why.
Brin wants a level playing field, but Schneider's arguing that we should slope the field heavily away from the government. If they have all the guns, we should at least have a monopoly on the data to preserve the balance of power.
Any practical society must be designed with the majority in mind not the vocal minority. Communism would work too, if everyone did what's good for a communist society. We need not pass laws forcing people to participate. We only need laws that reward them for participating. That is - as noted - one of the reasons communism has failed: it requires that people be enlightened and altruistic, both knowing what is best for their society and being willing to do it even at cost to themselves. When people are selfish, the whole thing collapses.
A properly constructed society would channel the efforts of the selfish toward doing the benefit of all, so when the selfish person acts, everyone benefits despite his intentions. That is one of the great benefits of capitalism, as Adam Smith said: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."
When people participate in civic life, as shieldwolf advocates, they can personally benefit if there is private property. If I prevent a robbery for example, and thus decrease crime in my neighborhood, I indirectly help everyone. But if I am selfish, I'll only do it if I can protect my own property or raise my own property values in the process.
Private property gives the selfish an incentive to do things that are good for the community.
We should be able to to see what our police are doing and what our congesspeople are doing with the authority we give them. Why? Because they work for us. . . . But once you grant that assertion, it follows . . . that your employer should be able to watch what you do with the authority they give you.
There, fixed that for you. Scope is important. Just as I may refuse to tell my employer about things I do outside the scope of my employment, we should accept that the government may refuse to tell us about things that it does outside the scope of the mandate we give it to govern on our behalf.
E.g., How did I award that contract? How did the government award that contract? Should I have paid a dividend to our shareholders or granted stock options to our execs? Should government have given a particular tax subsidy or tax break? Was a bribe involved? Etc.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
And in the UK this was codified by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act in 1984 which was a reaction to some pretty extreme cases of police abuse and malpractice in the 1970s. Like, police knowingly covering up evidence which proved that people in prison with life sentences were innocent. So it's a good thing that now interviews and taped (audio & video) and available to both sides but it only came about through a rare moment of political clarity.
Rich.
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
They act very public, every member of a mob feels proud to be a member,
Actually, they don't. This was just about universally assumed to be the case, and most police courses still teach this idea, but a number of recent studies (1990's and up) have shown that only about 25% of a given mob really want to be there. Larger percentages try to move towards the fringes and hang back, but are afraid that if they make a sudden break, the mob will turn on them. If the small percent that organize a mob make good choices in direction and pick up new people on the leading edge fast enough, the mob tends to hang together, whereas if it stays in one place, or avoids routes that let it pick up lots of new members, it dissipates.
Mob organizers can make people more afraid of leaving by appointing assistants to watch the edges and challenge hangers-back, or by announcing sudden changes of plan so that people caught up are more afraid to risk leaving, but these techniques may backfire. Most, probably all, mobs have an organizational core member set which has mastered at least some techniques to keep the mob going, has a plan to trigger a mob event before hand, and is willing to manipulate people in an at least semi-skilled fashion.
I'll be happy to provide some links on this if needed, but if you doubt it, try watching some mob video footage that captures the mob still en route to the location where it begins to destroy property or clash with the police, and see how easy it is to spot people herding stragglers, encouraging the reluctant and organizing the overall behavior. Also, count the numbers of these who are equipped with gear, such as handkerchiefs tied over their faces, disguising masks, or even gas masks, and figure these people came prepared to form a mob in advance.
Who is John Cabal?