"Assume everyone can potentially be either, and doll out rights and protections accordingly."
It is a good thing the founders of the United States saw rights as pre-existing and not something to dole out based on the understanding that people can potentially be victims or criminals.
"It's a fallacy to believe that criminals can never be victims, and victims can never be criminals."
I am not certain anyone is suggesting that. I will suggest, however, that the vast majority of lawful gun owners do not turn into victimizers. How many legal, privately owned firearms are in the United States? 100 million? 200 million? How many of those legally owned firearms are used in crimes?
Granted, we have an appalling level of violence in this country, and much is perpetrated with firearms. But of that gun violence, the majority is considered criminal-on-criminal, using illegally obtained firearms.
Yep, the government has most likely been doing this for years. Or something like it. The difference now being that surveillance has become more high profile and, as you mentioned, governments are now trying to justify this stuff to use it in court.
Bear in mind that I am not suggesting these things are OK, just that I believe they are nothing new.
I would hope the Germans have people who can come up with something better than emailing viruses to suspects. Heck, I would hope we (in the USA) have people smarter than that. It is almost as though this kind of stuff is done to give the suspects a false sense of security.
Speaking of (personal) defenses, are there not many countries where the use of encryption technology is illegal?
It seems many governments and politicians see Internet access as a right, and the only way to ensure everyone can exercise that right is to provide free access. I have wondered if the next step is to then hand out free machines (laptops, desktops, or some other kind of Internet-using-appliance). Again, to ensure everyone can exercise their right to Internet access.
Being in the technology field, I *do* see great benefit to widespread access, so I can partially, at least, understand the politicians' desires. Still, if government wants to be involved in free Internet, one way or the other it needs to make it worthwhile for whoever is going to build and maintain the network. Two quotes by Mr. Newsom are telling:
From the article:
"I'm disappointed because we had a chance to get it done, and it didn't happen," Newsom said. "The board delayed it, and now EarthLink could not be more pleased."
"EarthLink would have been legally obligated to fulfill its promises to San Francisco, and we would have had a functioning Wi-Fi system by now," Newsom said.
Seems Mr. Newsom is interested only in what he wants, regardless of the consequences for Earthlink. In fairness, I know little of this deal beyond the article, but I cannot fault Earthlink for getting out of this deal.
I used to hate the term "win-win," but some of that kind of thinking might have helped this project.
We can argue all day about whether or not we need more or less government, and what role government should play in our lives. Further, we can argue about whether more government and greater social spending means we are living up to our responsibilities or trying to unburden ourselves from them. My opinion on that got in the way of my main point(s):
1) Though I rarely read the polls and even less frequently believe the ones I do read, I did see some results recently (Pew, I think) which indicated that there is a shift, at least in the US, toward a desire for more government involvement and spending; on health care, feeding people, any variety of things. My opinion on this aside, I actually tend to believe the findings of this poll.
2) The poster to which I responded mentioned a left-leaning libertarianism. While I agree the shift is to the left, my point is that this shift has little to do with libertarianism. Big L and little l libertarians, far as I can tell, want less government in most all areas of society. Less taxation, less regulation, fewer laws, etc. There are many areas in which libertarians resemble liberals (for example: gay marriage, drug use/legalization, "bedroom issues," etc.) and there are also many areas in which they resemble conservatives (lower taxation, less government, less regulation, etc.). I have made some broad generalizations here, but hopefully I have made clearer the point I originally tried to make.
"More and more evidence is appearing that we are at the beginning stages of a powerful swing to a somewhat left-leaning version libertarianism in this country."
While I agree with your position that there is a leftward shift in public sentiment, to describe it as any form of libertarianism is probably not accurate. What I see and read is that the shift is in having more government involvement in almost all things. Medicine, education, you name it. There is no real thirst for small government which, personally, I find terribly distressing. Rather, there is great desire to shirk our personal responsibilities and have the government take care of things for us.
You make a decent point about handguns and their use in armed resistance to government, but miss the greater point. All manner of arms and ammunition are targets for folks who favor gun control. This does not mean that everyone who favors gun control favors limiting/regulating/banning all types of firearms, but make no mistake: rifles, shotguns, and all manner of weaponry are squarely in the target of the greater gun control crowd. Look at all the clamoring for another "assault weapons" ban. These are exactly the kind of arms a citizen needs in order to have any chance of offering real resistance to government.
My take on the NRA is that it sees efforts to limit citizens' access to firearms, ammunition, and places to shoot as a far more dangerous to the long-term survival of our nation than the (relative) handful of firearms which end up in the hands of criminals.
The Soviet Union had very strict gun control, and (from what I have read) very low crime during much of its seventy-plus years of existence. Well, low crime as measured by citizen against citizen. Many millions died at the hands of Stalin's henchmen alone, with little chance of defending themselves.
"Would you Americans mind telling me how it feels to live in a Capitalist Dictatorship?????"
Please... we are far from a dictatorship in the good ol' USA. Sure, our government errors on the side of taking freedom from citizens, as do most if not all governments in existence. It is one of the few things at which any government is reasonably good. That is not to say I accept this as OK. Far from it. I believe the less government is able to track citizens, the better.
Make no mistake about it, Leahy could care less about the privacy of citizens; he is trying only to make points against the Bush administration. Leahy supports all manner of tracking citizens through data gathering and sharing; just not in this case, since it *appears* to be something started under the current administration.
Slashdot Mirror
"Assume everyone can potentially be either, and doll out rights and protections accordingly."
It is a good thing the founders of the United States saw rights as pre-existing and not something to dole out based on the understanding that people can potentially be victims or criminals.
"It's a fallacy to believe that criminals can never be victims, and victims can never be criminals."
I am not certain anyone is suggesting that. I will suggest, however, that the vast majority of lawful gun owners do not turn into victimizers. How many legal, privately owned firearms are in the United States? 100 million? 200 million? How many of those legally owned firearms are used in crimes?
Granted, we have an appalling level of violence in this country, and much is perpetrated with firearms. But of that gun violence, the majority is considered criminal-on-criminal, using illegally obtained firearms.
Yep, the government has most likely been doing this for years. Or something like it. The difference now being that surveillance has become more high profile and, as you mentioned, governments are now trying to justify this stuff to use it in court.
Bear in mind that I am not suggesting these things are OK, just that I believe they are nothing new.
I would hope the Germans have people who can come up with something better than emailing viruses to suspects. Heck, I would hope we (in the USA) have people smarter than that. It is almost as though this kind of stuff is done to give the suspects a false sense of security.
Speaking of (personal) defenses, are there not many countries where the use of encryption technology is illegal?
It seems many governments and politicians see Internet access as a right, and the only way to ensure everyone can exercise that right is to provide free access. I have wondered if the next step is to then hand out free machines (laptops, desktops, or some other kind of Internet-using-appliance). Again, to ensure everyone can exercise their right to Internet access.
Being in the technology field, I *do* see great benefit to widespread access, so I can partially, at least, understand the politicians' desires. Still, if government wants to be involved in free Internet, one way or the other it needs to make it worthwhile for whoever is going to build and maintain the network. Two quotes by Mr. Newsom are telling:
From the article:
"I'm disappointed because we had a chance to get it done, and it didn't happen," Newsom said. "The board delayed it, and now EarthLink could not be more pleased."
"EarthLink would have been legally obligated to fulfill its promises to San Francisco, and we would have had a functioning Wi-Fi system by now," Newsom said.
Seems Mr. Newsom is interested only in what he wants, regardless of the consequences for Earthlink. In fairness, I know little of this deal beyond the article, but I cannot fault Earthlink for getting out of this deal.
I used to hate the term "win-win," but some of that kind of thinking might have helped this project.
We can argue all day about whether or not we need more or less government, and what role government should play in our lives. Further, we can argue about whether more government and greater social spending means we are living up to our responsibilities or trying to unburden ourselves from them. My opinion on that got in the way of my main point(s):
1) Though I rarely read the polls and even less frequently believe the ones I do read, I did see some results recently (Pew, I think) which indicated that there is a shift, at least in the US, toward a desire for more government involvement and spending; on health care, feeding people, any variety of things. My opinion on this aside, I actually tend to believe the findings of this poll.
2) The poster to which I responded mentioned a left-leaning libertarianism. While I agree the shift is to the left, my point is that this shift has little to do with libertarianism. Big L and little l libertarians, far as I can tell, want less government in most all areas of society. Less taxation, less regulation, fewer laws, etc. There are many areas in which libertarians resemble liberals (for example: gay marriage, drug use/legalization, "bedroom issues," etc.) and there are also many areas in which they resemble conservatives (lower taxation, less government, less regulation, etc.). I have made some broad generalizations here, but hopefully I have made clearer the point I originally tried to make.
"More and more evidence is appearing that we are at the beginning stages of a powerful swing to a somewhat left-leaning version libertarianism in this country."
While I agree with your position that there is a leftward shift in public sentiment, to describe it as any form of libertarianism is probably not accurate. What I see and read is that the shift is in having more government involvement in almost all things. Medicine, education, you name it. There is no real thirst for small government which, personally, I find terribly distressing. Rather, there is great desire to shirk our personal responsibilities and have the government take care of things for us.
You make a decent point about handguns and their use in armed resistance to government, but miss the greater point. All manner of arms and ammunition are targets for folks who favor gun control. This does not mean that everyone who favors gun control favors limiting/regulating/banning all types of firearms, but make no mistake: rifles, shotguns, and all manner of weaponry are squarely in the target of the greater gun control crowd. Look at all the clamoring for another "assault weapons" ban. These are exactly the kind of arms a citizen needs in order to have any chance of offering real resistance to government.
My take on the NRA is that it sees efforts to limit citizens' access to firearms, ammunition, and places to shoot as a far more dangerous to the long-term survival of our nation than the (relative) handful of firearms which end up in the hands of criminals.
The Soviet Union had very strict gun control, and (from what I have read) very low crime during much of its seventy-plus years of existence. Well, low crime as measured by citizen against citizen. Many millions died at the hands of Stalin's henchmen alone, with little chance of defending themselves.
"Would you Americans mind telling me how it feels to live in a Capitalist Dictatorship?????"
Please... we are far from a dictatorship in the good ol' USA. Sure, our government errors on the side of taking freedom from citizens, as do most if not all governments in existence. It is one of the few things at which any government is reasonably good. That is not to say I accept this as OK. Far from it. I believe the less government is able to track citizens, the better.
Make no mistake about it, Leahy could care less about the privacy of citizens; he is trying only to make points against the Bush administration. Leahy supports all manner of tracking citizens through data gathering and sharing; just not in this case, since it *appears* to be something started under the current administration.