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< | Safety in Obscurity or Irrelevance |
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> | Compromising our Right to Privacy |
| | -- By HumzaD - 13 Dec 2015 |
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< | The “security” and “nothing-to-hide” (NTH) arguments are persistent thorns in the side of privacy advocates. Eric Schmidt supports the former through the PATRIOT Act by invoking a simplistic version of the latter: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” Mr. Schmidt hinders discourse surrounding this debate by leaving privacy advocates to attack a straw man of what is actually a potent argument that we cannot dismiss out of hand. By presuming that privacy serves no purpose other than to conceal wrongdoing, Mr. Schmidt ignores those things which are not secret but still merit privacy, such as information about where he lives and how much he makes (found through a Google search). |
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> | The “security” and “nothing-to-hide” (NTH) arguments are persistent thorns in the side of privacy advocates. Both arguments attempt to persuade us that sacrificing our privacy is not problematic. Assuming that the loss of privacy entails the loss anonymity and thereby the loss of free speech, both arguments must persuade us that the loss of such freedom is justified by countervailing gains. It is easy to overcome both arguments if we establish that these countervailing benefits are nonexistent, but grappling with the potential sacrifice of our liberty is troublesome when the gains to be had include the preservation of other fundamental liberties. |
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Eric Schmidt is an outstandingly poor spokesman for this point of view, having himself some very dark secrets to hide. But it's not relevant: he's just being used here as a straw man. Why do you need all these words to say that anonymity is not the same as secrecy, and that its purpose isn't to hide secrets. I've already done all that work for you in the teaching I have either done or tried to do, and you could use the valuable space here for your own ideas.
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> | I therefore contend that sacrificing our privacy for certain forms of mass surveillance can: (1) preserve the right to security through the prevention of crime vis-a-vis the security argument; and (2) preserve the right against false imprisonment through government accountability vis-a-vis NTH. Recognizing thereby that a decision to preserve privacy may be a decision to forego other rights, I conclude that we are stuck with a responsibility to engage in balancing acts that will curtail one liberty, to some extent, at the expense of another. |
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< | A better form of the argument acknowledges the trade-off between sacrificing the ability to hide anything private and greater accountability through transparency. But as an American Muslim, recent events remind me of the bigger problem with this appeal to transparency: awareness that everything we say and do is being monitored leads to excess self-censorship, which entails the repression not only the illegal, but also of anything that could possibly be construed to be wrong for fear of persecution or prosecution. This fear suggests that anonymity is required to preserve free speech. |
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> | The Security Argument |
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< | Benefits of Transparency |
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> | Rather than engaging in some grand utilitarian calculation of whether unfreedom is safer than freedom writ large, I posit only the modest claim that stripping privacy in some situations does in fact have the potential to either lower violent crime rates or aid in the the retribution of justice against violent crime, thereby protecting a right to life and security (the source of which is discussed below). |
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< | The recent Paris attacks, along with our countless mass shootings suggest that no level of transparency (barring the possibility of precogs) would bring absolute security. Yet it is irresponsible to ignore the clear benefits surveillance can provide. To see these benefits, we need not look as far as China, where utter deprivation of liberty has led to murder rates that (allegedly) are one fifth that of the U.S. |
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> | The potential to prevent harm is first evident in the work of a company called Persistent Surveillance Systems, which solves crimes using aerial footage gathered from planes circling cities overhead. The military technology has successfully solved a slew of murders in Juarez and allegedly reduced Dayton’s crime rate by a third. As one would suspect, mere knowledge that Big Brother might be watching makes some criminals think twice. The company’s founder has worked with the ACLU on a privacy policy that seems to infringe only on the criminals’ rights to hide crime (footage is only used to see one-pixel blobs move from crime scene to hideout after the crime). |
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What possible evidence do you have that despotism is what accounts for whatever the difference in "murder rates" is between the US and China (assuming that you have some reason to trust Chinese social statistics, which few specialists in any discipline I know of do)? Is it too much to ask for some actual evidence of some kind before we accept the slanderous claim that unfreedom is safer than freedom for anybody anywhere at anytime? If I am required to believe this, I should at least be asked to do so on the basis of something other than pure assertion.
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> | While the program does not practically seem to infringe upon liberties, it is prone to abuse, and it could lead to more intrusive measures that would prove more problematic to our privacy. But if we take seriously the right to security, this slippery slope argument against such a narrowly tailored program should not be enough to outweigh its potential to prevent tangible harm. |
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> | In another instance, surveillance of the police itself has shown that police brutalities are reduced when cops are forced to wear inescapable body cameras. In a clear violation of police privacy, the public plays God to the police conscience to inhibit offensive behavior. |
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< | Instead we can ask whether we should allow a company like Persistent Surveillance Systems to solve crimes using aerial footage gathered from planes circling cities overhead. The military technology has successfully solved a slew of murders in Juarez and allegedly reduced Dayton’s crime rate by a third. As one would suspect, mere knowledge that Big Brother might be watching makes some criminals think twice. The company’s founder has worked with the ACLU on a privacy policy that seems to infringe only on the criminals’ rights to hide crime (footage is only used to see one-pixel blobs move from crime scene to hideout after the crime). The slippery slope argument against this narrowly tailored program is not enough to outweigh its potential to prevent harm. |
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> | And even when surveillance fails to prevent crime or terrorism, it can lead to the ex post apprehension of criminals. Both the Boston Marathon bombers and the 2005 London bombers were caught through review of CCTV footage. If punishment serves as a deterrent for future crime, this retribution also furthers the right to security. |
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< | Similarly, police brutalities are reduced when cops are forced to wear inescapable body cameras. In a clear violation of police privacy (whether such a thing should exist), the public plays God to the police’s conscience to inhibit offensive behavior. |
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> | The obvious objection at this point is that these case studies ignore much evidence that suggests that mass surveillance on a larger scale has no appreciable effect on crime. But there is also evidence indicating that it can. Moreover, though their conclusions contradict, data supporting and refuting the efficacy of surveillance in preventing crime both suggest that more draconian surveillance efforts would lead to greater crime preventions, since absolute surveillance would alleviate the problems of displacement. But analyzing these studies and making a normative statement about whether the loss of privacy leads to safer world writ large is beyond the scope of this paper. |
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< | Beyond this physical monitoring, greater information and transparency can promote government accountability. First, with unbridled access to our information, the government out struggle to hide behind “known unknown” type arguments. After 9/11, over 700 men with names like mine were detained for behavior sometimes as trivial as having a roommate that developed photos of the WTC. In a world where the government knew everything about these men, the FBI would struggle to proceed with arguments appealing to the danger of letting the men go because of a lack of knowledge. They would also avoid reliance in the first place on intel as flimsy as the PENTTBOM leads. |
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> | What is instead significant is that these programs unequivocally show that mass surveillance that infringes on privacy does in fact have the ability to further the right to security to some extent. If the loss of privacy is the loss of liberty, existence of these gains demonstrably supports the notion that the choice between liberty and security is not always a false dichotomy |
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< | Second, we are now better equipped to unearth hypocrisy and corruption in the government. Anti-gay politicians, for example, are likely to think twice before sending pictures on Grindr. |
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> | The Nothing to Hide Argument |
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< | The New Price of Relevance |
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> | Mass surveillance and intrusive collection of excess citizen data can also serve a potent tool to protect individual liberties in a world where the PATRIOT act passes the senate 98 to 1 after a terrorist attack. Individual liberties come under attack in the hysteria following such attacks, and the government’s ability to sift through mountains of data could prevent detention, abuse, and persecution of the wrong people, as was the case after 9/11. |
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< | This second benefit is only possible because the irrelevant majority, embodying the apathy towards important people inherent in NTH, have approved the heightened cost of being in the limelight. Our public figures need not worry about the heightened scrutiny if they have done no wrong. The obvious problem with this heightened scrutiny is that it may be unwise to impeach our public figures for Twitter affairs, even if that impeachment sometimes seems just. |
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> | With unbridled access to our information, the government would struggle to hide behind “known unknown” type arguments. After 9/11, over 700 men with names like mine were detained for behavior sometimes as trivial as having a roommate that developed photos of the WTC. In a world where the government knew everything about these men, the FBI would struggle to proceed with arguments appealing to the danger of letting the men go because of a lack of knowledge. They would also avoid reliance in the first place on intel as flimsy as the PENTTBOM leads. |
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< | A subtler problem is that if I accept NTH, I strive for irrelevance. Even if I have done nothing wrong, I censor myself to remain unimportant enough to avoid the invasive scrutiny proving my innocence. |
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> | Conclusion |
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< | A third problem is that the called for transparency gives way to false impeachment through (sometimes insidious) misinterpretations. Power knows that six lines written by the most honest man can be construed to have him hanged. My Muslim peers and I have been especially cognizant of this problem, painstakingly divorcing ourselves from anything but the most patriotic expressions, Google searches, and, consequently, thoughts, ever since three Muslim students were detained for one of these misinterpretations. Serving as the community liaison to the FBI on its local Muslim surveillance project, my father explained to me that I had become relevant. But does such self-censorship constitute a loss of free speech? |
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> | Beyond an appeal to the natural right to security, the right to protection from violent crime is guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its call for “security of person.” The right against illegal detention is a Constitutional guarantee. We therefore have a duty to do everything possible to guarantee these liberties up until the point that this guarantee infringes on other liberties, at which point we are forced to make some sort of value judgment about which is more appropriate to abridge. |
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< | The question brings to mind a situation in which most Americans were rooting against liberty: Giuliani’s prohibition on masks (upheld by Justice Ginsburg) at a 1999 KKK rally, which successfully limited the turnout to 18 Klan members. The Klan claimed the loss of anonymity prevented their ability to express themselves. Should we all be forced to express our viewpoints, however unpopular, without masks as we expect of the Klan, considering the beatdown the Klan received that day? |
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> | In this sense, infringing on privacy is not necessarily the meaningless destruction of an untouchable liberty. Rather it is a necessary evil that we have a duty to contemplate if that infringement can in fact preserve other serious rights. |
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- I think you mean that the Supreme Court did something, not that one Justice did something. Please be precise about legal matters; this is law school.
- Rudy Giuliani did not make the NYC mask ordinance, which long predated his mayoralty. Ditto.
The answer is yes in Mr. Schmidt’s world where the society’s approval serves as moral compass. The Klan do not want their faces shown because they have something to hide. They have reason to be ashamed of their opinions. But Mr. Schmidt would also force all the potential Dr. Kings of the world to choose between the same beatdown and utter silence, guaranteeing freedom of speech only to those unimportant or brave enough to pay the price. An ideal solution would eliminate violence towards unpopular ideas. Until we can figure out how to get everyone on board with that, anonymity is necessary.
This draft uses most of is words in ways that don't advance your thinking for the reader. Eric Schmidt doesn't need to be here; you don't need to differentiate secrecy and anonymity; you don't need to explain that anonymity protects the freedom of unpopular thought, or suggest that "the ideal solution" to any problem is that we should all just stop hurting one another. I'm not sure whether it is important to you to argue that mass surveillance is good in some way that produces "trade-offs." If so, I would like to understand whether that's because mass surveillance violates no fundamental civil, constitutional or human right, or because from now on we are supposed to accept mere balancing with respect to such rights, so that they are fully defeasible if "the murder rate" goes down through their violation. Neither of these arguments appeals to me. Indeed I think I can say that I have always rejected both of them completely. But if I'm going to give up on one of them, shouldn't I at least know which one it is on which I am supposed to be surrendering to the force of this argument?
As I say, I'm not sure this point is really important to you either. That's because I don't know what the essay is really about, because you don't explicitly tell me. One of the advantages of getting Mr Schmidt out of there is that you could begin the essay with a short, clear statement of the idea of your own that you want the reader to take from the essay. Subsequent paragraphs could then be devoted to developing that idea: showing how you came by it, what objections you considered and how you resolve them, and what further inquiries the reader might undertake for herself in order to use your idea in her own thinking.
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