See, all I'm trying to point out is that there's a flaw in your argument that can easily be exploited to undermine your line of reasoning. I'm all on your side and agree with your assertion, but the argument cannot be "There is no balance between security and liberty" since the most secure state would be where every one of us is locked in a high security cell. No more murders, no theft, no rape, no crime, perfect security. What a beautiful world.
The right question to ask is "How should the world we want to live in look like?" and I'm certain that most people would prefer to security budgets to go down, to see the TSA disappear, see elemental rights reinstated. It's a hard argument to make since people cling to security, but you can't substitute it by denying that security and liberty are at least partially on a trade-off scale.
i think you're missing the point. the benefit to 'security' as a result of the NSA surveillance is without evidence. as a result, comparisons of an imaginary 'trade off' between security and privacy are premature. we don't know the benefit to security, so how can we possibly make an informed decision about trading some of our privacy away for it?
also, even your hypothetical example falls pretty flat on its face. your world of everyone in a cell might actually have more theft, rape, crime etc. who is guarding the cells? who is doing the feeding? would they exchange favours for additional food?
the point is that a 'trade-off' is superfluous until you have evidence that it's even beneficial.
You're repeating my argument from the GP post, so I'll summarise it again: Security and Liberty are to a significant extend tradeoffs. [1] However, currently we're so far out on the side of security that the security gains of the measures are nil. The current measures just have costs in liberty while providing no security benefit.
> also, even your hypothetical example falls pretty flat on its face. your world of everyone in a cell might actually have more theft, rape, crime etc. who is guarding the cells? who is doing the feeding? would they exchange favours for additional food?
Robots ;)
[1] The relationship is somewhat more complicated, for example at least a certain extend of security is required for liberty and there's more factors in play, but that's a different case to make.
Whatever the relationship is between security and liberty is not known at this time. Any talk of 'sacrificing privacy for security' is complete bullshit because there is no data on the effectiveness of such measures. The trade off is not known, therefore you can't attach an imaginary relationship between the two.
> The current measures just have costs in liberty while providing no security benefit.
I think we can just both agree on this point and leave it here.
The right question to ask is "How should the world we want to live in look like?" and I'm certain that most people would prefer to security budgets to go down, to see the TSA disappear, see elemental rights reinstated. It's a hard argument to make since people cling to security, but you can't substitute it by denying that security and liberty are at least partially on a trade-off scale.