Economist perspective: Civil Liberties

[DcifrThs]

In this week's issue of the economist, the following 3 paragraphs are written:

[ QUOTE ]
When liberals put the case for civil liberties, they sometimes claim that obnoxious measures do not help the fight against terrorism anyway. The Economist is liberal but disagrees. We accept that letting secret policemen spy on citizens, detain them without trial and use torture to extract information makes it easier to foil terrorist plots. To eschew such tools is to fight terrorism with one hand tied behind your back. But that—with one hand tied behind their back—is precisely how democracies ought to fight terrorism.
.
Take torture, arguably the hardest case (and the subject of the first article in our series). A famous thought experiment asks what you would do with a terrorist who knew the location of a ticking nuclear bomb. Logic says you would torture one man to save hundreds of thousands of lives, and so you would. But this a fictional dilemma. In the real world, policemen are seldom sure whether the many (not one) suspects they want to torture know of any plot, or how many lives might be at stake. All that is certain is that the logic of the ticking bomb leads down a slippery slope where the state is licensed in the name of the greater good to trample on the hard-won rights of any one and therefore all of its citizens.
.
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.


[/ QUOTE ]

i want to see to what extent you here agree with this viewpoint and to have an as always engaging discussion.

Barron

[Zygote]

my grade 10 law teacher told me we have laws for their value not their purpose.

His example was that we could lock up a much a higher rate of child porn watchers if we searched every house in the country and instituted a draft to do so. However, this would devalue the higher structure in our law, the constitution, which protects the necessity of freedom and pursue-able prosperity.

[DcifrThs]

[ QUOTE ]
my grade 10 law teacher told me we have laws for their value not their purpose.

His example was that we could lock up a much a higher rate of child porn watchers if we searched every house in the country and instituted a draft to do so. However, this would devalue the higher structure in our law, the constitution, which protects the necessity of freedom and pursue-able prosperity.

[/ QUOTE ]

when i posted this i thought X% would agree with the economist's perspective (too early to tell what X is b/c i don't wanna bias the poll, though i doubt i would).

personally i agree because people lose lives to maintain (or obtain) freedoms. this is just another case of that.

can you separate value and purpose real quick though using your example?

Barron

[tomdemaine]

What should ACists vote? The type of secuitry firm that they would subscribe to or abstain?

[Zygote]

purpose is accomplishing the legislative goal of reducing crime. If we only had laws for purpose, we should stop at nothing to accomplish this goal. Give full cavity searches of everyone everywhere, search all houses randomly, torture people, etc.

The only reason we dont accept this is because the purposeful action of the law must be balanced with constitutional rights that are granted to all individuals. Legislative authority only exists so far as individuals constitutionally provide such authority so those who bear the contract lose their share of claims if martial law rains.

The contract explicitly places the constitutional rights of those individuals who represent the initial contract above any lower authority granted within.

To ignore this is to misread the value of the effect of any action to the contrary.

[tolbiny]

[ QUOTE ]
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

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

[tomdemaine]

I never thought about things that way good point tol.

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
In this week's issue of the economist, the following 3 paragraphs are written:

[ QUOTE ]
When liberals put the case for civil liberties, they sometimes claim that obnoxious measures do not help the fight against terrorism anyway. The Economist is liberal but disagrees. We accept that letting secret policemen spy on citizens, detain them without trial and use torture to extract information makes it easier to foil terrorist plots. To eschew such tools is to fight terrorism with one hand tied behind your back. But that—with one hand tied behind their back—is precisely how democracies ought to fight terrorism.
.
Take torture, arguably the hardest case (and the subject of the first article in our series). A famous thought experiment asks what you would do with a terrorist who knew the location of a ticking nuclear bomb. Logic says you would torture one man to save hundreds of thousands of lives, and so you would. But this a fictional dilemma. In the real world, policemen are seldom sure whether the many (not one) suspects they want to torture know of any plot, or how many lives might be at stake. All that is certain is that the logic of the ticking bomb leads down a slippery slope where the state is licensed in the name of the greater good to trample on the hard-won rights of any one and therefore all of its citizens.
.
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.


[/ QUOTE ]

i want to see to what extent you here agree with this viewpoint and to have an as always engaging discussion.

Barron

[/ QUOTE ]


This is a silly question. It's like asking if people should eat chicken or fish. If the people in a democracy decide to do X, they should do X. If they decide to do Y, then they should do Y. Of course, this is all assuming that the participants in the democracy are willing! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Considering this article was in *the Economist* I'm surprised it didn't mention that the heavy handed tactics have a much higher indirect cost than anyone wants to admit.

[DcifrThs]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
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

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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

[tolbiny]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
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

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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

[/ QUOTE ]

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.