I read an article over the weekend about the flawed security/ privacy debates taking place in America. Interesting read…. Author breaks it down into five most used arguments:
The All-or-Nothing Fallacy
The Deference Argument
The Pendulum Argument
The War-Powers Argument
The Luddite Argument
The author is Daniel J. Solove is the John Marshall Harlan Research Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School
Here is the link: http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/05/31/solove_privacy_security/
He makes some interesting points. But “security” has the biggest trump card of all: emotion. It seems America has been on a steady diet of fear for the last 10 years. Fear is an amazing motivator and tends to take rationality out of the equation. I just wish our media pushed other ways Americans die, and in far greater numbers, as sensationally as the do the terroristic act. Total security is a myth. But a lot of people are cashing in on the emotion, at the expense of liberty.
The surveillance issue will be a point of contention for years to come. Right now it seems the government likes the “spying” one sided.
Agreed 100%.
This guy probably hangs out with Bruce Schneier. His book, Beyond Fear, is a good read if you like this stuff.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/security_vs_pri.html