In response to my thoughts on Personal Privacy, I received, what I thought to be, an enlightened and thoughtful comment, worthy of further discussion and reply. I share the comment of “ocoastperson” with you below and add my comments and thoughts.
I do want to thank ocoast, if I may presume to be on a first-name basis, for his/her comments and invite anyone, whether they agree or disagree, to comment. I am fond of saying, I have defended the right to free speech with the offer of my life, and while I may not support or believe in what they do, even the KKK has the right to express an anti-Semitic sentiment in Skokie, Illinois…but as usual, I digress. The comment of “ocoastperson”:
Other bloggers have tied the self-claiming libertarians with authoritarian personalities. Authoritarian personalities generally seem to view police of all stripes as realizations of themselves. Plus, they enjoy other disfavored people being pushed around.
Speaking more clearly, authoritarian personalities not only want order, they view the world as us vs. them. The police are in some sense the enforcers of this, by controlling and punishing the them.
Thus the authoritarian side of most libertarians makes them blind to the actual fact that others, the ones in control, can decide at any point to make THEM (the authoritarian) one of the bad guys - they just can't see it.
Your post contains several good points but is actually quite restrained in its implications. On the one side, existing police technology can take an image of a license plate and pull information from a police data base about the car owner, acting much like your [driver’s license electronic] strip or a transponder.
On the other hand, the true way to easily recognize individuals would be to place something unremovable on or in them. If radiation and recharging concerns can be dealt with, this "personal transponder" is the logical solution to the police state's ever growing need to know everything about everyone. The personal transponder could be coupled to an embedded information space and computer that could be updated on the fly by police (of every stripe). Plus read by employers, etc. .. random drug testing results, credit history, .. it could be required to be read as a part of every purchase ...
All necessary to keep us secure, folks!
Thus the authoritarian side of most libertarians makes them blind to the actual fact that others, the ones in control, can decide at any point to make THEM (the authoritarian) one of the bad guys - they just can't see it.
Your post contains several good points but is actually quite restrained in its implications. On the one side, existing police technology can take an image of a license plate and pull information from a police data base about the car owner, acting much like your [driver’s license electronic] strip or a transponder.
On the other hand, the true way to easily recognize individuals would be to place something unremovable on or in them. If radiation and recharging concerns can be dealt with, this "personal transponder" is the logical solution to the police state's ever growing need to know everything about everyone. The personal transponder could be coupled to an embedded information space and computer that could be updated on the fly by police (of every stripe). Plus read by employers, etc. .. random drug testing results, credit history, .. it could be required to be read as a part of every purchase ...
All necessary to keep us secure, folks!
Taking the technology to the logical conclusion tends to dwarf even the predictions of Orwell's "1984". I am not sure that even Orwell's dystopia could envision satellite surveillance and computers, but correctly predicted the iniquitousness of television (although they had telescreens that sent as well as received).
Sadly, I am not sure that we have not reached the point where technology has not become so pervasive that it can no longer be controlled (pardon the multiple negatives). There will always be someone that will use the technology to their own advantage (hackers), and politicians are no exception. I can't help but wonder if an Orwellian Democracy is already upon us. While people scoff at the idea, because of the source, mostly, can the electronic capability of the government be far from what was depicted in “Enemy of the State”?
In the movie “Enemy of the State, Will Smith does not really beat the system as much as he manages to manipulate it, with the help of someone that knows the technology (Gene Hackman), by the way, to obtain a favorable outcome. Just as an aside, does anyone think the Congressman that was the proponent of that National Security Act was not a Republican? Keep in mind that the movie was made in 1998 and the USA Patriot Act was just a gleam in the idea of some xenophobe, that had to protect us at all costs, including our privacy and civil rights.
The "true believers" that are willing to do anything based on their perception of what is best for everyone. They will always be the most dangerous people in the world, for they will do anything to achieve their goal(s), and they will never believe they were not acting in the best interests of society. As much as they may be despised, I am not sure even Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot or even Osama bin Laden believed themselves to be acting wrongly. Parenthetically, I wonder if Richard Nixon ever came to the conclusion that what he did was wrong, or if he just regretted getting caught.
I agree with everything you have said, and would only add one defining comment. Police are not all authoritarians to start off with; many of them get that way over time. FSU Professor George Kirkham gave an outstanding explanation for this in his study and resulting book, "Signal Zero", (police code for a gun). It is available through Amazon and is probably more relevant today than it was when it was written in 1973. It shows how police work tends to create the us vs them mentality.
I wonder when we all have to report to be chipped? Hey, they do it to pets…it must be good for you, right?
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