Economist perspective: Civil Liberties

[DcifrThs]

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Human rights are part of what it means to be civilised. Locking up suspected terrorists—and why not potential murderers, rapists and paedophiles, too?—before they commit crimes would probably make society safer. Dozens of plots may have been foiled and thousands of lives saved as a result of some of the unsavoury practices now being employed in the name of fighting terrorism. Dropping such practices in order to preserve freedom may cost many lives. So be it

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Its funny how these assumptions get accepted so quickly. The "we could reduce crime X to very low levels" is a heck of an assumption. California's three strike laws are in effect attempting the same thing. People who are career criminals get locked up based not only upon their previous crime but upon the expectation that they will commit another crime when they get out, so they give them longer sentences. One of the unintended consequences has been an increase in violent crime. People with two strikes and little to lose already were essentially facing murder charges (in terms of sentencing) for much milder requirements. The behavior change for a lot of the career criminals is the choice to get rid of witnesses, a thief who may have gotten of lighter by not injuring his victim now stands to gain less from such consideration.

The assumption that we can curtail actions X Y and Z if we just have enough resources and are allowed to use them should not be given that free logical pass. The unintended or unforeseen consequences of policies should not be taken lightly.

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the only point they were making was an abstraction. if they could search every computer, they'd find more child pornographers.

searching every computer though violates rights and has tons of costs etc.

Barron

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The logical leap is in the assumption that these actions will decrease the net total actions.

If police are allowed to read your library book list, and listen for buzzwords on your cell calls, and interrogate you without council, ect, then they will catch more terrorists. Therefore there will be fewer terrorists. This is the fallacy since it ignores the impact on those who were not, and likely would not have become, terrorists until they were treated by the police in way X Y and Z. The people who are going to be investigated by these methods primarily are not the stockbroker with a wife and two kids, they are loners and outsiders already. The people on the margin of acting in unacceptable ways are being pushed another step closer to lashing back.

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first off, that is a great point and is often neglected.

to be fair though, the economist was making a judgement call. they were saying that if the US govt could X, Y, Z (i..e detain, interrogate etc.) more, then the US would be net safer than if they couldn't/didn't do X,Y,Z (including net of the terrorists they created by doing that).

you can make a counter argument that there will be less safety (from terrorists, not from the govt) if the govt could and did do X,Y,Z etc.

Barron