A Challenge for Supporters of the Unpatriot Act

[ChinoCoug]

Originally Posted by UtahDan

That our intelligence was not robust enough, that our agencies were too isolated one from another.

This is the only part of the post I agree with. I work for the Census Bureau (Commerce). The IRS (Treasury) should give us company revenue and expense data so we don't have to ask businesses to report it to us. Right now they only give us totals, not detailed expenses. That's redundant reporting.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Archaea

We have suffered loss of liberties and you have not mentioned them. The wiretapping laws have changed immensely, so that the standards to obtain them are greatly relaxed.

Only if you're calling overseas terrorists.

Originally Posted by Archaea

And speaking of nuance, your post runs wild with ad hoc ergo proctor hoc. Show me a correlation or causal connection between the loss of personal liberties under the Patriot Act and the lack of attacks.

I don't have the data to substantiate this claim, but those who DO have the data, DO make the claim.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Tex

Only if you're calling overseas terrorists.



I don't have the data to substantiate this claim, but those who DO have the data, DO make the claim.

That is simply untrue. Wiretap laws now make it easy for federal officials to obtain wiretaps on almost anybody.

Of course, they make that claim, they must continue to clamor for funding and priority; it's not like they have any conflicts of interest.

[UtahDan]

Originally Posted by Archaea

We have suffered loss of liberties and you have not mentioned them. The wiretapping laws have changed immensely, so that the standards to obtain them are greatly relaxed.

And speaking of nuance, your post runs wild with ad hoc ergo proctor hoc. Show me a correlation or causal connection between the loss of personal liberties under the Patriot Act and the lack of attacks. Your conculsory statement makes no mention of the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, in other words, taking the battle to the would-be terroists, and depleting them of resources, as perhaps a more likely cause to a lack of attacks as opposed to a loss of liberties for the guies of increased security.

I think if you read my post again you will find that what I was trying to do is frame the discussion. My overall point is that we have to look at the benefits as well as the costs to determine whether we have the right balance. I think I have conceded that it may be that we do not. But the point is that we are always giving up one or the other, security or liberty. It isn't always bad to give up either one, which seems to be the moral imperative some are suggesting. We individually and collectively every day expose ourselves to risks that we have chosen to bear and live without liberties that we might have if we lived outside a social contract.

Wouldn't you agree with me that "loss of liberty=bad" cannot be analyzed with out the context of what you gave up and what you got for it? That is why I say that without the context the whole point of this discussion is missed.

Wiretapping is a perfect example. What liberty do you lose? Well you lose the ability to speak to a known or suspected terrorist calling you from overseas without the government listening, and you lose the right to have a high level of scrutiny over the authorization of that tapping, though there is some scrutiny. What do you get? Well ostensibly you intercept communications that might help to stop attacks. So then the question, in context, is whether this is a compromise that was worthwhile. If it nets no results it is clearly not. If it nets some results then you have to ask whether you gave up too much to get it.

As for lack of attacks, the context of that remark was to note that it is a positive that it has occurred, and that it should be factored into our analysis. I hope you're not attributing to me the facile argument since there have been no attacks that all steps we have take are therefore justified.

If I am understanding you, and tell me if I am not, you believe that any step toward losing liberties in favor of gaining security puts us on a slippery slope toward what is depicted in The Lives of Others. What I am trying to point out is that we already have made a large number of these compromises and I that I don't think it can be persuasively argued that they are all bad. I am arguing in favor of having a sober look at those compromises and deciding whether they are worthwhile.

I personally believe that the loss of liberty that came with the patriot act was very very marginal compared to compromises we have already made. Whether it was effective I don't know, though there is some evidence it was. I fully agree with what I believe the spirit of your point is, to-wit: that we must be very careful of the slippery slope. I only add the caveat that we should not be hasty to equate the Patriot Act with the Stasi when in truth they are about two dozen incremental steps removed from each other.

It is no different, in my mind, than when someone shouts socialism over the prescription drug benefit. While of course it is a step in that direction, it is many steps removed from true socialism and it is in fact not that large a step in that direction when you consider the many quasi-socialist things our government already does.

Again, I'm just trying to put the question into what I see as the context, because I just don't think it is possible to have any real analysis of the issue without it.

[UtahDan]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Sociologically and anthropologically speaking we need not examine our history but also the histories of other nations.

NAZI Germany became oppressive and deprvied its citizens of liberties, China has, Russia as well as most Muslim nations.

Once liberties are sacrificed on the altar of state security, it will either be a long time before they are recovered, or won through bloodshed, that is the history of human rights.

Look Arch, every government including ours deprives its citizens of any number of liberties. That is the nature of social contract. We give over many of our individual rights to the collective, even in a liberal republic. Our government is the best because it deprives us of the fewest, I agree. But to say that any deprivation of liberty puts us on the road to oppression just overstates the case, in my opinion. I agree fully with the impulse to worry about it; we should. But isn't it more useful to look at what we specifically gave up (which I find people have a very hard time articulating) as contrasted to what we got in the bargain, rather than just saying that in no case should any liberty no matter how small be sacrificed for security no matter how great?

For example, when you commit a crime that I am the victim of, I don't get to arrest you, try you, sentence you or punish you. I have given those rights over to the collective. I have done it because we have a safer society when the government enforces the law than when every one is a law unto themselves. In the absence of the social contract I AM at liberty to do those things. Yet I give over these liberties in favor of a safer, more orderly society. The maximum you are asserting isn't an argument for the elimination of the police and the judiciary. Obviously you are not saying that. But do you see my point what we are really talking about is not giving up liberty for security, but giving up TOO MUCH liberty for security? The conversation, then, and this is all my point ever was, is not whether we should ever give up liberty for security, but whether we have given up too much. That is a conversation we must do with reference to the specifics.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by UtahDan

Look Arch, every government including ours deprives its citizens of any number of liberties. That is the nature of social contract. We give over many of our individual rights to the collective, even in a liberal republic. Our government is the best because it deprives us of the fewest, I agree. But to say that any deprivation of liberty puts us on the road to oppression just overstates the case, in my opinion. I agree fully with the impulse to worry about it; we should. But isn't it more useful to look at what we specifically gave up (which I find people have a very hard time articulating) as contrasted to what we got in the bargain, rather than just saying that in no case should any liberty no matter how small be sacrificed for security no matter how great?

For example, when you commit a crime that I am the victim of, I don't get to arrest you, try you, sentence you or punish you. I have given those rights over to the collective. I have done it because we have a safer society when the government enforces the law than when every one is a law unto themselves. In the absence of the social contract I AM at liberty to do those things. Yet I give over these liberties in favor of a safer, more orderly society. The maximum you are asserting isn't an argument for the elimination of the police and the judiciary. Obviously you are not saying that. But do you see my point what we are really talking about is not giving up liberty for security, but giving up TOO MUCH liberty for security? The conversation, then, and this is all my point ever was, is not whether we should ever give up liberty for security, but whether we have given up too much. That is a conversation we must do with reference to the specifics.

I have been involved in witnessing the abuses of easy wiretaps. At one time the standard was meaningful. Now a prosecutor need find only a friendly judge and basically you can wiretap anybody you wish. This is a liberty we don't need.

We had county commissioners investigated for going to a strip joint using the provisions of the Patriot Act. I find that appalling.