What Price Security

Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.
  - Michael Crichton

I was having a discussion (actually a political disagreement) with a neighbour the other day and I happened to mention my concern about the Canadian (and other) government’s ever increasing encroachment into our private communications under the guise of saving us from terrorists, child molesters, child pornographers, or any other excuse they can make hay with.  I told him that I did not like the idea of the government having relatively unfettered access to my communications, whether phone, smart phone or internet.  And of course, I got the same old answers that I have come to expect, “If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about” and “We have to protect ourselves against terrorists,” always invoking 9/11.  So I thought about these reasons and came to the following conclusions.

If we start with the, “If you haven’t done anything wrong” argument, I like to paraphrase the statement as follows, “When they came for the Gypsies, I said nothing for I wasn’t a Gypsy.  When they came for the Jews, I said nothing because I wasn’t a Jew.  When they came for the Catholics, I said nothing because I wasn’t a Catholic.  When they came for me, nothing was said because there was nobody left to speak for me.”  While you may not think you have done or said anything wrong, somebody else, or some other group may think otherwise.  Who’s to say what will be considered wrong by someone at some point now or in the future.  We pride ourselves that we have always had a rational government; a government that supposedly has all of our best interests at heart.  But as politics in this and many other countries gets more partisan and polarized; as the income gap gets wider, with the rich able, in some cases, to pay to get sympathetic politicians elected; as the issue of climate change gets more contentious; and as transnational companies get more and more above the law of any one country, who’s to say what ideas you may have that will run afoul of the prevailing “rightness” of the day.  The problem with your privacy and freedom of thought is that once it is gone it is very hard to get back.  Once the damage is done, it is done

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The argument about 9/11 is another one that needs examining.  Apparently the laws that had provided for our safety for dozens if not hundreds of years were no longer adequate to protect us from another 9/11.  In light of that event, new intrusions into our lives had to be devised.  This subsequently led us to the ability of the NSA and CSEC to monitor any e-mail or telephone call in their respective countries.  The fear of another terrorist attack raised the level of paranoia to such an extent that many people were willing to accept this intrusion.

But let’s look at the facts.  There has not been a successful terrorist attack in North America since 9/11.  The security minded point to this as proof their argument is right, although we are told by authorities that none of the attempted attacks was first detected by phone or e-mail.  This being the case, the prior intelligence could well have been used to request a warrant for legal eavesdropping.  But maybe that’s not the reason.

The question is do foreign terrorists really need to expend the money and effort to strike another attack against North America?  Let’s look at what the terrorists accomplished from that original attack.  They made the world paranoid and many western countries willing to pass draconian laws to curb many of the personal freedoms that had been the hallmark of western civilization.  They caused the United States and other western countries to undertake two debilitating wars in the Middle East.  Canada fought in one of those wars.  These wars caused massive debts that now make it impossible for these western countries to afford to fight new disturbances around the world.  In this way the terrorists could be said to have won.  They don’t have to strike the west again.  The damage is done.  The major terrorist groups now seem to be concentrating of participating in the more conventional (by today’s standards) wars in the Middle East.  They are now heavily engaged in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and some of the old Soviet republics with a view of establishing governments that conform to their view of religious states.  That should keep them busy and focussed for many years to come.

I’m not paranoid about my well-being, but I do resent agencies having unfettered access to my personal correspondence without knowledge or recourse.  And it’s getting worse, because new laws being proposed would open such access to corporations and agencies beyond the police and government security agencies (law societies, medical societies, corporations to identify copyright infringements).  Who’s going to police them?  Who’s going to ensure that they don’t abuse the privilege?  Now you’re making me upset.  Now you are going too far.

You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too.
  - John Kenneth Galbraith

All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse.
  - Benjamin Franklin