Choose: Privacy or Security

Odyne

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I found this today and it got me thinking:

If you had to choose one of the two which would you pick? I feel like Privacy might be a popular choice, so allow me to throw a wrench in that gear train for the sake of argument diversity: think about your loved ones, and for those of you who are parents, think about your children. Is having Privacy all that worth it?

What is so great about Privacy anyways, why is it such a "big deal"?


On another notion, can we have both? Is there a way to achieve some sort of sensible compromise between the two? And how so?


Generally, what are your thoughts on the possible trade-off depicted above?
 
To think we can have complete privacy and complete security without compromise is probably a bit naive considering the world we live in. We are almost always being surveilled and our behavior regulated on some level, and some of this is often accepted as necessary for our safety. We have police on the streets monitoring roads and communities to prevent crime. We have surveillance cameras in businesses to protect property and for safety purposes. We have air marshalls on planes, etc. and watch lists for plane travel to prevent potentially dangerous people from getting on flights (although this is still highly controversial). On the other hand, I don't fancy personal info about my life whether gathered electronically or otherwise being known or circulated without consent to someone who could misuse this information for anything other than legal and ethical purposes. I don't agree that our lives are naturally open books (involuntarily surrendered) for everyone to see and judge. But I think in the end, it's the purpose of the surveillance and regulation that decides how intrusive it is. The other question is what kind of info falls under right to know vs. nyob. The next qestion of course will be, does the info gathered indicate that someone is a danger to themselves or others?
 
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What does security entail tho

What does privacy entail? What does liberty entail?

Am I allowed to steal a million gummy bears and then lock up all the evidence in a safe in my house, and then tell the police when they come with a search warrant that the safe is my private property and they are not allowed to see what I have in there, if anything?
 
What does privacy entail? What does liberty entail?

Am I allowed to steal a million gummy bears and then lock up all the evidence in a safe in my house, and then tell the police when they come with a search warrant that the safe is my private property and they are not allowed to see what I have in there, if anything?

Yes. They will know when you get diabeetus!
 
Yes. They will know when you get diabeetus!

Well I'd probably only eat a few since I'm not a big candy eater. I'd mainly steal them for chaaaoooosssss

I still have half a pack of Life Savers from like a year ago. I mean come on, we're talking Life Savers and they aren't gone. I also have a pile of Jolly Ranchers.
 
Well I'd probably only eat a few since I'm not a big candy eater. I'd mainly steal them for chaaaoooosssss

I still have half a pack of Life Savers from like a year ago. I mean come on, we're talking Life Savers and they aren't gone. I also have a pile of Jolly Ranchers.

I think diabeetus via gummy bears is chaos for society so you would be doing it a favor
 
Obviously, Benjamin Franklin is dead and didn't know anything about how the world is today. Also, famous dead people from long ago are not omniscient beings.

The point, which is what Obama is saying, is that talking about choosing only privacy or security is a false dilemma, and the actual issue is more complex and nuanced than that.
 
There is a glaring difference between the two statements

One statement was made by a person who was involved in throwing off a dictatorial government and the other statement was made by someone who is helping to create a dictatorial government

The thing to understand abou the people who are trying to bring in a dictatorial government is that they will lie

Franklin had something to lose (his freedom) whilst obama is looking to gain something (control over us)

EVERYTHING in life is a balance....EVERYTHING

What the puppetmasters who pull Obamas strings want to do is take away our freedoms. To do this they must lie to us and say that they are doing it for our good.

They are not doing it for our good. They are doing it for THEIR own good

This is because they have now amassed vast fortunes and they don't want to share them so they must reinforce government to protect them from the angry and disspossessed people. They will lie to achieve this. They will say they represent 'democracy' when they represent fascism. They will say that they are acting on behalf of you when they are acting on behalf of themselves and they will say they are doing it for your 'security' when they are doing it to control you

They have a vision....this is not conspiracy theory....i would hope by now with all the events we are seeing (and those yet to see such as increased military involvement in syria and bank bail ins etc) that it should be obvious to anyone who is not in deep deep denial that what the so called 'conspiracy theorists' (a term created by the CIA to smear people questioning the warren commissions findings over the execution of president kennedy) have been saying is TRUE

There is a group of people who control the nations wealth that pull the strings from behind government. These people are looking to increase their control over us. They are totalitarians....which is to say that they want TOTAL control over EVERY aspect of our lives

You can try and kid yourself that this is not the case but i PROMISE you that this snowdon scandal is just the tip of the iceberg and that you will see your freedoms eroded more and more as they gradually sleep walk us into their prison world they are trying to build

This is not s foregone conclusion and if people wake the fuck up and start spending their money and efforts in a more savy way then the plans of these guys can be averted

This is not as Obama frames it choice between freedom and security.....because the only people threatening your security are Obama and his paymasters. They ARE the terrorists

If we give away all the power to government and their extra-governmental agencies then we destroy the balance of power between the people and the state. This reduces us to the status of slave and raises them to the status of master


 
If you want privacy, security or anything else...have it...just don't look to the biggest existing institutions. They're bought and paid for.
 
[MENTION=1579]Odyne[/MENTION]:
A few (scattered) thoughts right now (I may right something a bit more coherent and articulate later):


  • Security almost always comes at the cost of some privacy, and privacy at the cost of some security
  • You can have both, but only partial amounts. You have have some privacy and some security, but not complete privacy and good security
  • Privacy is more or less dead - and not just due to governments, but our own willingness to share information
  • Security, by nature, requires someone or something looking at and controlling information
  • Both security and privacy (in completion as many would like) are illusions.
    • There is no perfect security, only more or less secure
    • There is no perfect privacy, only more protected or hidden or less
  • Wealth of intel itself does not lead to better security - you need systems and people to sort through the intel for actionable items.
  • People want both. They'll take one until they need the other, then they gripe. You can't satisfy everyone.
 
I choose Benjamin Franklin, because I have always liked him! However, technology has rendered his viewpoint somewhat obsolete.

In his day, the methods of communication/privacy violations involved people riding horses and shouting "One if by land, two if by sea!" and "The redcoats are coming!" etc., and spies intercepting other spies carrying parchment scrolls sealed with wax (because wax is really secure), and people taking months-long voyages across oceans to communicate things from other governments. I doubt Benjamin Franklin could ever even conceive of suicide bombers or drones or the internet.

Today? You have people recording riots and battles with their iphones and those events being viewed by people halfway across the world almost instantaneously. And people hacking into government databases, and governments looking into people's emails, and idiotic mayors sending naked photos of themselves to women, and getting busted, multiple times, and it's pretty much a free-for-all.

I'd have to agree that both privacy and security are somewhat illusory. But, the reason people want privacy is so they can do whatever it is they want to do without push-back from anyone else, whether it is completely harmless, merely naughty, or violent.

And the reason they want security is so they can go about their lives with a somewhat reasonable expectation of not getting killed or injured in the course of simply going about their lives.
 
I despise conspiracy theories. I think they amount to a heap of supposition and often border on the delusional. I do acknowledge that, given the choice between making decisions that aren't based on promoting the economical well being of the wealthy and decisions that benefit the entire people of a nation....chances are that the wealthy will prevail. That is to say, that systems built upon hierarchies tend to work with descending scales of benefits with a funnel-like set up. I also acknowledge that given the choice of a centralized power system to broaden rights versus curtail them, the choice is usually to exert control (over an uncontrollable world). I tend to think that the United States, as a country has a very narcissistic viewpoint. As a relatively young country, we (as a country) like to have this obnoxious "OMERGAWD, how could this happen" response to threats to our national security....it happens because we are a nation and all nations face threats to their security. And, the typical response is to tighten security and increase monitoring. Our government will continue to engage in behavior to monitor and control, as long as we allow it to happen. I say that given the choice between security and freedom, I choose the privacy to be the person I want to be provided I do not work to harm others. I think that when it comes right down to it, you have to make that choice. You can't sit on the fence and talk about compromise between these two ideals, there isn't one. One can conceded that certain measures MAY be reasonable, but one should always strive to make any choice to limit privacy/freedom a difficult task with lots of questions and lots of rationale to go along with the decision.
 
I dont think its possible to have 100% of either one, this is just philosophical ponderings. Personal privacy is a part of security so the comparison is silly and lends itself to conspiracy theories.
 
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I found this today and it got me thinking:

If you had to choose one of the two which would you pick? I feel like Privacy might be a popular choice, so allow me to throw a wrench in that gear train for the sake of argument diversity: think about your loved ones, and for those of you who are parents, think about your children. Is having Privacy all that worth it?

What is so great about Privacy anyways, why is it such a "big deal"?


On another notion, can we have both? Is there a way to achieve some sort of sensible compromise between the two? And how so?


Generally, what are your thoughts on the possible trade-off depicted above?
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

This was written by Franklin, sometime shortly before February 17, 1775 as part of his notes for a proposition at the Pennsylvania Assembly, as published in Memoirs of the life and writings of Benjamin Franklin (1818). A variant of this was published as:
  • Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
    • This was used as a motto on the title page of An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania. (1759); the book was published by Franklin; its author was Richard Jackson, but Franklin did claim responsibility for some small excerpts that were used in it.
    • Many paraphrased derivatives of this have often become attributed to Franklin:
    • They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
      They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
      Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither.
      He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security.
      He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither.
      People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.
      If we restrict liberty to attain security we will lose them both.
      Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
      He who gives up freedom for safety deserves neither.
      Those who would trade in their freedom for their protection deserve neither.
      Those who give up their liberty for more security neither deserve liberty nor security.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin
It would appear that Franklin actually qualified "Liberty" with "essential" rather than "a little", and qualified "Security" with "temporary" rather than "a little"

What really strikes me is how many of these juxtapositions that are floating around are based on subtle misquotes. Its like folks attach themselves to ideas that ring with them and then attribute them to old heroes.
 
Violating all of these laws and shady doings just might be worthwhile if they were hunting down people who are trying to make detonation mechanisms for nukes/are aware that there was material missing from Russia (or elsewhere). That's pretty much it, as far as I'm concerned, otherwise we already had pretty much all we needed to get bin Laden before 9/11 even happened, and enough to prevent it. Otherwise, like Snowden said, we may as well be putting cameras in our bathrooms (some foreign communications might be that private, or moreso...) so Big Brother can keep us from slipping on soap, for the good it will do. Which is not to mention all of the shenanigans/abuses of power that it makes easier for individuals and small groups of people to do.

The measures that are out there now haven't kept us safe from things like Boston, and that should have been easy to stop; there's more to be done by using our intel better. IIRC, most tests that have been done have shown that it's rather easy to get materials through airport security because of human error. Like the airport security the current scope doesn't accomplish much, and has a high cost to our privacy.

Pandora's box has already been opened. Terrorism is not going to go away, no matter how many cameras, pat-downs (nice euphemism for being molested), and CIA we have.
 
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Both political characters are crooked in their own way. Why should we consider what either of them say is true?
 
Both political characters are crooked in their own way. Why should we consider what either of them say is true?

Just because they're human doesn't mean they speak only untruths.

Sir Isaac Newton was allegedly a real jerk, but he invented calculus. :P
 
I want a ticket in CO. Those noisy things in the air flying around, you know.
 
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