Trading civil rights for a safer society...

[mrph]

Various politicians and columnists seem to be talking about how swapping some civil rights for increased protection from terrorists is a fair trade.

There are lots of reasons why I don't agree with that, but here's one of the main ones: would it actually work? Has anyone got a case study, an example of a country that's actually done this and seen some tangible benefits as a result?

Because right now, I'm having real trouble thinking of one...

Comments

[jruske.livejournal.com]

There's really no evidence that less civil liberties and less privacy leads to more protection.

The problem is a one-two knock out punch of bad logic:

1) Less privacy and less civil liberties allows law enforcement to have more information to intervene and act to prevent a crime,
2) If you prevent the crime then you cannot convict the intended criminals, so you cannot enforce the law against them.

That said, there has always been an argument which suggests that strict enforcement of existing law establishes a society which self-reports. I.e. if you strictly enforce anti-drug laws consistently then over time people will call in or report on people whom they see involved in drug related activities.

This of course didn't happen in the USA over the past two decades. Despite massive spending and enforcement exercises, the bottom line was that the mainstream society (including the televised version) never saw the harm in drugs or other outlawed substances and as such more and more money being poured into enforcement led to spotty operations that usually had more PR than impact. At best we boosted convictions of committed crimes in direct relationship with the dollars spent and the rolling back of civil liberties.

So to say spending massive amounts of money to create an anti-terrorist push at the federal level in the USA will lead to terrorism being prevented, and arguing that a reduction of civil liberties will enable this further... well that's just bunk. The prior activities support that you cannot even convict people who haven't committed a recorded and documented crime (Gitmo) and preventing/intervening in a crime destroys the credibility of the evidence. Furthermore the reaction of communities accused of sponsoring and harboring terrorists is exactly what you would expect. Those communities use the press and other means to vehemently oppose the accusations, to state or suggest conspiracy theories over why they are being blamed, play the minority entitlement and discrimination card, etc.

Even after video confessions of the terrorists from their community are played by mass media outlets.

The answer for domestic and internal terrorism is not likely at the government level. The government level can work on international and cross border terrorism with some success. But internal terrorism is most effectively addressed by people knowing their neighbors and students and co-workers, paying close attention, and tipping off local authorities if something is just plain wrong.

Whether the local authorities are enabled to do anything with that information is a different problem. That's where civil liberties come into play. And the existing wiretap and survellience laws in the US and the UK are sufficient for that purpose. Along with the protections built into those.

[mrph.livejournal.com]

Those communities use the press and other means to vehemently oppose the accusations, to state or suggest conspiracy theories over why they are being blamed, play the minority entitlement and discrimination card, etc. Even after video confessions of the terrorists from their community are played by mass media outlets.

Which is something we've seen before anyway, back in the days when people were Suspiciously Irish. Part of the problem is these aren't things that are discussed openly within a community - because the terrorists know that most of the community won't agree with them. And part of the problem is the - sometimes justified - belief that the authorities haven't got a clue.

If you're certain your co-worker is up to something, you report him (as jambon_gris pointed out a while back, one would-be extremist got reported by his imam when he started shooting his mouth off at the mosque...). If you're just... unsure... which is probably far more likely, you might not report him if you think that could lead to a miscarriage of justice for an innocent man (seven shots to the head, for example). Basically: do you trust the system?

Can the government persuade British muslims that it's after the genuine extremists, not just looking to silence free speech and jail/deport a few convenient people so that it looks like it's making progress? If they can do that, the community will work with them. If not, the community will be busy trying to stand together and less concerned with policing itself.

IMHO, of course. But with 3% of the UK population muslim, I don't think any other response is practical. Looking for a handful of needles in a worried and unhelpful haystack just won't work. And yes, I know I'm mangling my metaphors... :)

Whether the local authorities are enabled to do anything with that information is a different problem. That's where civil liberties come into play. And the existing wiretap and survellience laws in the US and the UK are sufficient for that purpose. Along with the protections built into those.

Agreed (although wiretap evidence is something of an issue here, I think). In fact, most of the UK laws are sufficient. I think it's just easier for the goverment to make a lot of noise about new ones - to prove that they're doing something - than to point out that adequate laws have been there all along and they're just having trouble catching and prosecuting people (or haven't bothered to try to enforce them).