Liberty vs. Security

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin

Often in times of war, the government violates the rights otherwise given to it's people. In the case of the US, what is the point of the Bill of Rights if they may be over looked in wartime? When we give up our rightful freedoms, don't we loose that which we wish to protect? When we deny others such guarantees as fairness and justice, don't we lose the moral high ground we often claim to stand upon?

Just a few examples of the United States revoking rights during times of war include (hopefully enough to just spark some ideas):

• Alien and Sedition Acts
• Suspension(s) of Habeas Corpus
• Internment of Japanese Americans
• Patriot Act

Should the government be allowed to base their suspicion solely upon ethnicity? Should they be allowed to indefinitely detain people without so much as explaining why? Should the government be allowed to take away your entitlement to free speech if a war is going on? We have a legal system in place which allows for law enforcement to investigate suspicious persons, but should they be allowed to bypass things such as warrants during wartime?

Simply, do you think one is worth giving up for the other? Does the status of "wartime" give the government the right to infringe upon the people's liberties? Where do you think the balance lies?

Please excuse the lack of foreign examples, I'm a great deal more acquainted with US legislation. Certainly other countries' laws can be discussed.

I find this to be a delicate issue for me personally. I think it is easy sometimes, to look back on something in hindsight, and call it absurd, but think about the pressure on the lawmakers and the governing bodies during some of those times. It would have been enormous.

So personally, I would urge the leaders to keep rights at the top of their list of priorities, but if a temporary suspension is crucial to save the lives of millions, I would favor it. Temporary mind you.

I find this similar to gun control, which also favors protection over rights.

If the government cannot violate your rights in a time of war when it is necessary, then they may not be able to protect those rights once the war is over, because they may not be the government who won. That's something to think about. The greater good, the ends justifying the means and all that.


Liberty and freedom are nothing more than a capacity for injustice.
Privacy, a breeding ground for illicit behaviour.
Democracy, a potential for mob rule.

Regardless of security, regardless of whether or not you will be safe, you must ask yourself the question of whether or not allowing such violations of rights would be just.

Think of the worst criminal atrocity you can comprehend. Domestic abuse? A terrorist attack? An innocent girl getting raped in her own home?

All of these could be avoided, or at least the perpetrators brought to justice with simple invasions of privacy, such as a surveillance society. Any indications of domestic abuse could be acted upon before it got too serious. Any suspicious planning activity that might lead to someone committing a terrorist attack or a simple shoot-up could be stopped long before it became serious. Sexual predators who may have behaviour which indicate their tendency could be caught before they cause harm, and any un-meditated rapists could at least be caught.

I mean there are things which could be done even without going as far as a Nineteen Eighty-Four-esque camera-in-every-room fantasy. This DNA database that people are so scared about in Britain for example, a database of all people who have been arrested or even just a database of every citizen in the UK from birth, many crimes might actually have been prevented if people knew that DNA evidence could easily lead back to them.

Oh yes, I don't trust the government any more than the rest of us to be able to use such facilities responsibly or even efficiently, but if you are the type of person who gets morally outraged when they hear about a disgusting crime, and then complains at even the slightest violation of your rights for the sake of "security", then don't pretend that you care about these people. I'm perfectly willing and able to criticise these totalitarian measures because I'd sooner protect my own privacy and the ability to enjoy my life without being excessively paranoid than the life of some girl I've never met, but at least I'm willing to admit I'm that selfish. Those of you who like to think you can take the moral high ground in this instance, however, had better think again.

Originally Posted by Lord Zero

If the government cannot violate your rights in a time of war when it is necessary, then they may not be able to protect those rights once the war is over, because they may not be the government who won. That's something to think about. The greater good, the ends justifying the means and all that.

Give me an example of a violation of rights which was absolutely necessary and couldn't be avoided.

Liberty and freedom are nothing more than a capacity for injustice.
Privacy, a breeding ground for illicit behaviour.
Democracy, a potential for mob rule.

One could just as easily say that:
Security and stability are nothing more than a capacity for oppression to continue.
Transparency, an ever-increasing demand for possession of another - first to have complete access to one's work, then their home, then their mind
Totalitarianism, the loss of everything admirable about the human condition.

It's easy to put a negative spin on something.

Regardless of security, regardless of whether or not you will be safe, you must ask yourself the question of whether or not allowing such violations of rights would be just.

Agreed.

Think of the worst criminal atrocity you can comprehend. Domestic abuse? A terrorist attack? An innocent girl getting raped in her own home?

All of these could be avoided, or at least the perpetrators brought to justice with simple invasions of privacy, such as a surveillance society. Any indications of domestic abuse could be acted upon before it got too serious. Any suspicious planning activity that might lead to someone committing a terrorist attack or a simple shoot-up could be stopped long before it became serious. Sexual predators who may have behaviour which indicate their tendency could be caught before they cause harm, and any un-meditated rapists could at least be caught.

How can you "catch" someone BEFORE they do something like rape? That's your problem right there - you then have a Minority Report situation where people get arrested because the authorities are pretty sure that they're going to commit a crime. To put it bluntly, **** that.

I mean there are things which could be done even without going as far as a Nineteen Eighty-Four-esque camera-in-every-room fantasy. This DNA database that people are so scared about in Britain for example, a database of all people who have been arrested or even just a database of every citizen in the UK from birth, many crimes might actually have been prevented if people knew that DNA evidence could easily lead back to them.

I actually agree on this point; a DNA database would not be a violation of privacy as far as I can tell, unless somehow one's religion prohibits it and even then, that's a stretch.

Oh yes, I don't trust the government any more than the rest of us to be able to use such facilities responsibly or even efficiently, but if you are the type of person who gets morally outraged when they hear about a disgusting crime, and then complains at even the slightest violation of your rights for the sake of "security", then don't pretend that you care about these people. I'm perfectly willing and able to criticise these totalitarian measures because I'd sooner protect my own privacy and the ability to enjoy my life without being excessively paranoid than the life of some girl I've never met, but at least I'm willing to admit I'm that selfish. Those of you who like to think you can take the moral high ground in this instance, however, had better think again.

Flaw: the girl in question probably never volunteered for an invasion of her own privacy for the security of herself and others, and so anyone who also has not volunteered for such an invasion is no less concerned for 'security' than she is.

Originally Posted by Evilsbane

Give me an example of a violation of rights which was absolutely necessary and couldn't be avoided.

For one thing, the right to the legal defences of duress or necessity when you have committed an act of treason. If say you drive a getaway car for a bunch of bank robbers because they have a gun to your head, you can plead duress ("they were threatening me"). If you drive their getaway car because they have your family held hostage somewhere, you can plead duress ("they were threatening to kill my family"). If you work for the military for example, and you are kidnapped by Russian agents demanding to know information that only you have, you are legally expected to die before you tell them, because of the possible consequences if you don't (the subjugation of the British populace and its invasion by foreign powers). In that scenario, supposing that Britain was able to survive the results of that reason, and he was tried, and he tried to plead duress, I would see it justified to disallow him that defence even if I'd hate to be legally expected to be a hero myself, because of the possible consequences if he didn't.

One could just as easily say that:
Security and stability are nothing more than a capacity for oppression to continue.
Transparency, an ever-increasing demand for possession of another - first to have complete access to one's work, then their home, then their mind
Totalitarianism, the loss of everything admirable about the human condition.

It's easy to put a negative spin on something.

On nearly everything, but they aren't what I'm advocating. Justice is what I'm advocating, and demanding the protection of liberty, privacy, democracy, security, stability, transparency, or totalitarianism if they would oppose Justice makes your stance unjust. Basically, I challenge you to put a negative spin on Justice, and to argue why any other value should take precedence.

How can you "catch" someone BEFORE they do something like rape? That's your problem right there - you then have a Minority Report situation where people get arrested because the authorities are pretty sure that they're going to commit a crime. To put it bluntly, **** that.

If someone has behavioural patterns which suggest they may be dangerous to others in that regard, they can be dealt with, and preventative measures can be taken. You're talking about the rather stupid situation in Minority Report, where people are arrested and convicted for crimes they haven't actually committed.

I actually agree on this point; a DNA database would not be a violation of privacy as far as I can tell, unless somehow one's religion prohibits it and even then, that's a stretch.

The entire argument is basically just "hurfdurf the government wants our DNA even when we haven't actually done anything which means they think we're guilty until proven innocent".

Flaw: the girl in question probably never volunteered for an invasion of her own privacy for the security of herself and others, and so anyone who also has not volunteered for such an invasion is no less concerned for 'security' than she is.

Regardless of whether or not she's volunteered for an invasion of privacy, it's the sort of person who protests for the right to privacy for all who tends to cry the loudest when they read about the kind of things she has been subjected to.

One of the last victims of Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, could still be alive today had the police acted any quicker by the time they had enough to indicate that he was their man. Her mother even took the police to court over it, demanding compensation for the death of her daughter, in "Hill v Chief Constable for West Yorkshire" (I think that's the case name). The court decided that there was no way the police could owe a "duty of care" to her daughter or her, because the job of the police is so wide-spreading that they can't possibly owe such a duty to individual members of the public. If they had overwhelming definite evidence however, such as I don't know, video evidence from the places in which he committed those crimes or his home from the aftermath if they were outside, then for them not to have acted would have been police negligence, and she (and even some of the other victims) might still be alive today.

They might still have complained that their privacy had been invaded because they were never victims, but this is the problem with any preventative life-saving measure, including speed cameras - you'll never know which lives you could specifically have saved, because they never died, and so no scenario exists in which you can say "I could have saved them if this were the case" - so this IS the case, and they WERE saved.

"With the first link the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably" - Captain Jean-Luc Picard

I know that the character is fictional, but this is one of the best quotes I have ever heard.

In the name of security, liberty would not end from one day to another. It would happen in small steps, taking more and more rights from the citizens, perhaps people would not even realise it. Therefore, the vanishing of rights must be fought from the start. To some it may seem that this is overreacting, that we should sacrifice a bit of liberty for more safety.

But there is also another quote:

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"

Originally Posted by Maritimus

"With the first link the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably" - Captain Jean-Luc Picard

I know that the character is fictional, but this is one of the best quotes I have ever heard.

In the name of security, liberty would not end from one day to another. It would happen in small steps, taking more and more rights from the citizens, perhaps people would not even realise it. Therefore, the vanishing of rights must be fought from the start. To some it may seem that this is overreacting, that we should sacrifice a bit of liberty for more safety.

Not everything is a snowball.

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"

That was in the OP, right at the top, so it would be nice if you'd actually read the posts here before posting.

It's hard to talk about this generally, this should be determined case-by-case. Every law is a trade-off that restricts liberty, but as a society we've decided it's OK to lose our right to murder because murder is bad and the more important right to life should be protected.

Originally Posted by TalAarahk

It's hard to talk about this generally, this should be determined case-by-case. Every law is a trade-off that restricts liberty, but as a society we've decided it's OK to lose our right to murder because murder is bad and the more important right to life should be protected.

There are general principles that can be laid down so that you know what to apply should a case come up.

I guess it depends on what you prefer: the freedom to do what you want, or security from other people doing what they want to you.

In Sweden, two suggestions have come up over the years that i will now compare. Both suggestions would give the citizens of Sweden a safer life in some way.

1) Every citizen's DNA should be stored for Police to use in Police investigations.
2) The government records all incoming and outgoing electronic communication when doing so internationally, eg. if I call to another country or chat with someone from another country.

People have protested both suggestions, saying it violates their privacy. I don't quite see how a DNA storage is violating privacy, unless you have an emberrasing illness in your blood you don't want anyone to know. Even if that was the case, it would greatly help the police catch criminals such as rapists who often leave a lot of DNA. For whatever reason, storing DNA never became law while the second suggestion did.

The government is recording the communication of pretty much every citizen with international contact. Even though the records aren't available unless the Police suspect you of terrorism, it's far more privacy-violating than the first suggestion.

Aaaand I don't really have an end point, I just wanted to share that piece of retardedness.

Originally Posted by Lord Zero

For one thing, the right to the legal defences of duress or necessity when you have committed an act of treason. If say you drive a getaway car for a bunch of bank robbers because they have a gun to your head, you can plead duress ("they were threatening me"). If you drive their getaway car because they have your family held hostage somewhere, you can plead duress ("they were threatening to kill my family"). If you work for the military for example, and you are kidnapped by Russian agents demanding to know information that only you have, you are legally expected to die before you tell them, because of the possible consequences if you don't (the subjugation of the British populace and its invasion by foreign powers). In that scenario, supposing that Britain was able to survive the results of that reason, and he was tried, and he tried to plead duress, I would see it justified to disallow him that defence even if I'd hate to be legally expected to be a hero myself, because of the possible consequences if he didn't.

For reasons that are possibly arbitrary, I would draw the line at murder. Duress should not be a valid defence in cases of murder. And so I can understand someone saying 'I drove the getaway car because they made me do it' but I cannot understand 'I killed/helped kill her/them/the entire country because they made me do it'. As I've said, I can see how this seems arbitrary, and perhaps it is, but it's where I stand. I would expect that level of fortitude from an adult citizen. And in any case, that's not a violation of a right but an exception in a law, and just about every law has exceptions (such as it being alright to kill if in self-defence). The government is legally and democratically empowered to pass laws, and to in-build exceptions to that law... so long as the law is constitutional. A violation of rights is more like passing a law in direct contradiction of the nation's constitution, with the only justification being that the government thinks it prudent.

On nearly everything, but they aren't what I'm advocating. Justice is what I'm advocating, and demanding the protection of liberty, privacy, democracy, security, stability, transparency, or totalitarianism if they would oppose Justice makes your stance unjust. Basically, I challenge you to put a negative spin on Justice, and to argue why any other value should take precedence.

The problem with Justice is that different people have different ideas of what it means to 'give each their due', and so in the absence of universality, a concept such as Justice loses all meaning.

If someone has behavioural patterns which suggest they may be dangerous to others in that regard, they can be dealt with, and preventative measures can be taken. You're talking about the rather stupid situation in Minority Report, where people are arrested and convicted for crimes they haven't actually committed.

Elaborate on the phrase 'dealt with'.

The entire argument is basically just "hurfdurf the government wants our DNA even when we haven't actually done anything which means they think we're guilty until proven innocent".

Yes, it does seem that there is a bit of paranoia about it... the government already has your social security details, your bank balance, your address, your car license plate number, plus any information it gets in a census and other red tape. This information is not abused - I see no reason to suspect that DNA samples would be. Especially given that if the authorities REALLY wanted to frame you for something, they'd easily be able to get that information covertly.

Regardless of whether or not she's volunteered for an invasion of privacy, it's the sort of person who protests for the right to privacy for all who tends to cry the loudest when they read about the kind of things she has been subjected to.

This is understandable, since an all-pervasive surveillance, extending to toilets, locker rooms and bedrooms, would be essentially 'strip-searching' her everyday, which isn't so much better that an aversion to it could be described as hypocritical.

One of the last victims of Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, could still be alive today had the police acted any quicker by the time they had enough to indicate that he was their man. Her mother even took the police to court over it, demanding compensation for the death of her daughter, in "Hill v Chief Constable for West Yorkshire" (I think that's the case name). The court decided that there was no way the police could owe a "duty of care" to her daughter or her, because the job of the police is so wide-spreading that they can't possibly owe such a duty to individual members of the public. If they had overwhelming definite evidence however, such as I don't know, video evidence from the places in which he committed those crimes or his home from the aftermath if they were outside, then for them not to have acted would have been police negligence, and she (and even some of the other victims) might still be alive today.

I am not familiar with the particulars of that case but, based on what you've said, it was possibly more a fault of inadeqate manpower. Surveillance of a citizen is fine and dandy so long as it does not overstep certain boundaries. If the police felt that he was their man, then round-the-clock 'stakeout' surveillance would be fine as long as they didn't invade his home without a warrant. He could then not have gotten near his last victim without the police seeing. So the lamentable fact is not that a lack of 'all-pervasive surveillance' was not used, but that none was used. It is possible, in my opinion, for the police to keep an eye on suspects without it being a violation of privacy (the surveillance could simply watch him while out and about), and if a law allowing such surveillance does not exist, then it should. I am not so naive as to think that enforcement of law is possible without ANY surveillance, but so long as there's a line.

They might still have complained that their privacy had been invaded because they were never victims, but this is the problem with any preventative life-saving measure, including speed cameras - you'll never know which lives you could specifically have saved, because they never died, and so no scenario exists in which you can say "I could have saved them if this were the case" - so this IS the case, and they WERE saved.

Hang on - what surveillance were they slow to perform? I was assuming you meant surveillance of Sutcliffe, but if you mean of the young woman, how could they have known she would be the next victim?

Originally Posted by erinys

I guess it depends on what you prefer: the freedom to do what you want, or security from other people doing what they want to you.

I would say that a lack of either one would be fairly similar to a lack of the other.

Originally Posted by Hombre de Mundo

In Sweden, two suggestions have come up over the years that i will now compare. Both suggestions would give the citizens of Sweden a safer life in some way.

1) Every citizen's DNA should be stored for Police to use in Police investigations.
2) The government records all incoming and outgoing electronic communication when doing so internationally, eg. if I call to another country or chat with someone from another country.

People have protested both suggestions, saying it violates their privacy. I don't quite see how a DNA storage is violating privacy, unless you have an emberrasing illness in your blood you don't want anyone to know. Even if that was the case, it would greatly help the police catch criminals such as rapists who often leave a lot of DNA. For whatever reason, storing DNA never became law while the second suggestion did.

The government is recording the communication of pretty much every citizen with international contact. Even though the records aren't available unless the Police suspect you of terrorism, it's far more privacy-violating than the first suggestion.

Aaaand I don't really have an end point, I just wanted to share that piece of retardedness.

That IS quite extreme. It seems to me that someone should protest that law in some way. Is anyone?

Originally Posted by Evilsbane

For reasons that are possibly arbitrary, I would draw the line at murder. Duress should not be a valid defence in cases of murder. And so I can understand someone saying 'I drove the getaway car because they made me do it' but I cannot understand 'I killed/helped kill her/them/the entire country because they made me do it'. As I've said, I can see how this seems arbitrary, and perhaps it is, but it's where I stand. I would expect that level of fortitude from an adult citizen. And in any case, that's not a violation of a right but an exception in a law, and just about every law has exceptions (such as it being alright to kill if in self-defence). The government is legally and democratically empowered to pass laws, and to in-build exceptions to that law... so long as the law is constitutional. A violation of rights is more like passing a law in direct contradiction of the nation's constitution, with the only justification being that the government thinks it prudent.

Actually neither duress nor necessity are available for murder either (R v Dudley and Stephen, a case where three men and a boy were shipwrecked and the three men pleaded that they had to eat the boy to survive, and even though the boy's mother was saying they should be let free, they were still found guilty of murder, but unusually for the time they were only given a short sentence rather than hanged), but since we were talking about wartime, I specified treason.

The closest thing Britain has to a single constitutional document is the Human Rights Act which enacts the European Convention of Human Rights into our system, and every single right under this convention has a statement of what the right is, and a statement of when this right can be suspended.

The problem with Justice is that different people have different ideas of what it means to 'give each their due', and so in the absence of universality, a concept such as Justice loses all meaning.

But Justice itself is still at the absolute top.

Elaborate on the phrase 'dealt with'.

Taken to an institution for therapy perhaps.

Yes, it does seem that there is a bit of paranoia about it... the government already has your social security details, your bank balance, your address, your car license plate number, plus any information it gets in a census and other red tape. This information is not abused - I see no reason to suspect that DNA samples would be. Especially given that if the authorities REALLY wanted to frame you for something, they'd easily be able to get that information covertly.

I think the trouble some people anticipate is simple beauracratic inefficiency - last year sometime the civil service lost some discs with the details of a couple of million people on them, and they haven't been recovered to this day. The thing is, I don't see why exactly people would be worried specifically about this happening to DNA samples - there's only so much you can use DNA for if you're not, say, the police, and it's not like the specific sample can be replicated. Say they take a swab from your mouth at birth (one of the ideas), I don't think they can use that to create sperm that appears like it might belong to you and then frame you for rape or something.

This is understandable, since an all-pervasive surveillance, extending to toilets, locker rooms and bedrooms, would be essentially 'strip-searching' her everyday, which isn't so much better that an aversion to it could be described as hypocritical.

Either you misunderstood what I was saying or I misunderstood what relevance this has to what I said, either way I don't know what you mean here.

What I was saying is that the kind of person who complains when their privacy is invaded is the same kind of person who gets the most morally outraged when they read about some girl being raped and mutilated by her drug-addled boyfriend, when invasions of privacy are what could have avoided that.

I am not familiar with the particulars of that case but, based on what you've said, it was possibly more a fault of inadeqate manpower. Surveillance of a citizen is fine and dandy so long as it does not overstep certain boundaries. If the police felt that he was their man, then round-the-clock 'stakeout' surveillance would be fine as long as they didn't invade his home without a warrant. He could then not have gotten near his last victim without the police seeing. So the lamentable fact is not that a lack of 'all-pervasive surveillance' was not used, but that none was used. It is possible, in my opinion, for the police to keep an eye on suspects without it being a violation of privacy (the surveillance could simply watch him while out and about), and if a law allowing such surveillance does not exist, then it should. I am not so naive as to think that enforcement of law is possible without ANY surveillance, but so long as there's a line.

But if we did have a form of all-pervasive surveillance, it's entirely possible that none of his victims would have died, or nowhere near as many as actually did.

Hang on - what surveillance were they slow to perform? I was assuming you meant surveillance of Sutcliffe, but if you mean of the young woman, how could they have known she would be the next victim?

Surveillance wasn't the problem, it's just that they had received information that strongly suggested that Peter Sutcliffe was their man (or something along those lines, I only know the legal principle from the case and the details very vaguely), and according to the mother of the last victim, didn't act on it quick enough which indirectly allowed her daughter to become his final victim. The court said that since the police are only human, there's no way they can owe a duty to every single member of the public (she was suing on the basis that the police had a duty of care to her daughter), but if they did have all-pervasive surveillance and had even stronger evidence than they did (video-footage basically), then there's no way the court would have been able to say they weren't negligent if they hadn't acted on it, and if the evidence was more definite, the police likely wouldn't have left it as long as they did anwyay.

What I was saying in that paragraph was basically my response to a possible argument. I was basically saying in the preceding paragraph "all-pervasive surveillance can save lives", and I would expect someone to say "which lives?", as they always do when I say that speed cameras save lives. The point is that you can't specifically point at a life and say "I saved that one" when it's a passive preventative measure such as this.

That IS quite extreme. It seems to me that someone should protest that law in some way. Is anyone?

I don't like the sound of it either, but it's still arguably justified since it's not every communication, just international communication (unlike here where apparently all records of what you do online are kept by your ISP for three months or so).

But if we did have a form of all-pervasive surveillance, it's entirely possible that none of his victims would have died, or nowhere near as many as actually did.

We can torture people too.

Originally Posted by Flames of Valor

We can torture people too.

Which would actually be counter-productive, unlike all-pervasive surveillance.

Originally Posted by Lord Zero

Which would actually be counter-productive, unlike all-pervasive surveillance.

A violation of rights for potential benefits, thats what they are.

Originally Posted by Flames of Valor

A violation of rights for potential benefits, thats what they are.

Except there the only potential benefits of torture arise in very narrow, very limited, and very unlikely situations, whereas the potential benefits of all-pervasive surveillance are potentially limitless with the only downsides being A) the authority in question might abuse it and B) you won't be able to have a wank without some government-paid voyeur watching, but masturbation isn't actually illegal so you've got nothing to worry about!

Originally Posted by Lord Zero

Except there the only potential benefits of torture arise in very narrow, very limited, and very unlikely situations, whereas the potential benefits of all-pervasive surveillance are potentially limitless with the only downsides being A) the authority in question might abuse it and B) you won't be able to have a wank without some government-paid voyeur watching, but masturbation isn't actually illegal so you've got nothing to worry about!

And you're violating millions of peoples rights simoltaneously, as opposed to a very, very small portion of torture victims.

See, honestly, unless I could see the rate of torture, correlated with the rate of useful information obtained by torture, I can't really agree with you. The same can be said of surveillance.

So, why wouldn't you be willing to violate the rights of a single man, for potential lives, vs. the rights of millions for potential lives? Unless you have clear, readily available statistics, (which I would be very happy to see) I don't think it's fair to make the conclusion you did.

Because, when it boils down to it, they are both violations of rights for potential benefits.

So, unless there is a clear cut difference in the rate of success, I don't see too much of a difference.

Originally Posted by Lord Zero

Actually neither duress nor necessity are available for murder either (R v Dudley and Stephen, a case where three men and a boy were shipwrecked and the three men pleaded that they had to eat the boy to survive, and even though the boy's mother was saying they should be let free, they were still found guilty of murder, but unusually for the time they were only given a short sentence rather than hanged), but since we were talking about wartime, I specified treason.

Well as I said, that's still more of 'democratically sound' law, in that the government is within its rights to pass it - it's not overstepping clearly-defined bounds with a flimsy justification.

The closest thing Britain has to a single constitutional document is the Human Rights Act which enacts the European Convention of Human Rights into our system, and every single right under this convention has a statement of what the right is, and a statement of when this right can be suspended.

Is the law about duress being irrelevant to treason contradictory to that document?

But Justice itself is still at the absolute top.

If you mean Justice in a 'universal truth' sense, then theoretically yes, but then you have the problem of attempting to either get everyone to agree what that is, or get one person or a handful to decide without being in any way biased. And while the former is extremely difficult, I'd say the latter's impossible.

Taken to an institution for therapy perhaps.

Based on what? He hasn't done anything, nor is there proof of insanity.

I think the trouble some people anticipate is simple beauracratic inefficiency - last year sometime the civil service lost some discs with the details of a couple of million people on them, and they haven't been recovered to this day. The thing is, I don't see why exactly people would be worried specifically about this happening to DNA samples - there's only so much you can use DNA for if you're not, say, the police, and it's not like the specific sample can be replicated. Say they take a swab from your mouth at birth (one of the ideas), I don't think they can use that to create sperm that appears like it might belong to you and then frame you for rape or something.

TBH, I would not be surprised if they could - if I understand cloning technology correctly, they would merely need a cell of the person to be cloned, and implant the nucleus of that cell into a 'blank' egg (that is, one with no nucleus). Then you have stem cells, which can be manipulated to become just about any tissue you need it to be. The thing is however, that a person hell-bent on framing you for murder by planting fake DNA evidence could covertly harvest the necessary cells in any number of ways already, I'd wager.

Either you misunderstood what I was saying or I misunderstood what relevance this has to what I said, either way I don't know what you mean here.

What I was saying is that the kind of person who complains when their privacy is invaded is the same kind of person who gets the most morally outraged when they read about some girl being raped and mutilated by her drug-addled boyfriend, when invasions of privacy are what could have avoided that.

Let me phrase this another way - never having sex (or having a hysterectomy) is a fool-proof way to never get unexpectedly pregnant, but even if something solves one problem, it's no good if it causes others. 'The cure is worse than the disease' and all that. Especially when there are other methods of prevention. And although anyone COULD be raped, they'd rather take their chances than sign up for Big Brother. The outrage is because we have OTHER ways to prevent and/or punish rape, and a failure of THESE methods is what is upsetting.

But if we did have a form of all-pervasive surveillance, it's entirely possible that none of his victims would have died, or nowhere near as many as actually did.

But then they and everyone else would be mentally raped every day for the rest of their lives. No-one needs to see inside average citizens' toilets. And besides, who watches the watchmen?

Surveillance wasn't the problem, it's just that they had received information that strongly suggested that Peter Sutcliffe was their man (or something along those lines, I only know the legal principle from the case and the details very vaguely), and according to the mother of the last victim, didn't act on it quick enough which indirectly allowed her daughter to become his final victim. The court said that since the police are only human, there's no way they can owe a duty to every single member of the public (she was suing on the basis that the police had a duty of care to her daughter), but if they did have all-pervasive surveillance and had even stronger evidence than they did (video-footage basically), then there's no way the court would have been able to say they weren't negligent if they hadn't acted on it, and if the evidence was more definite, the police likely wouldn't have left it as long as they did anwyay.

That seems more to do with human error than with existing laws not going far enough.

What I was saying in that paragraph was basically my response to a possible argument. I was basically saying in the preceding paragraph "all-pervasive surveillance can save lives", and I would expect someone to say "which lives?", as they always do when I say that speed cameras save lives. The point is that you can't specifically point at a life and say "I saved that one" when it's a passive preventative measure such as this.

OK.

I don't like the sound of it either, but it's still arguably justified since it's not every communication, just international communication (unlike here where apparently all records of what you do online are kept by your ISP for three months or so).

And if the UK jumped off a bridge...

Originally Posted by Flames of Valor

And you're violating millions of peoples rights simoltaneously, as opposed to a very, very small portion of torture victims.

See, honestly, unless I could see the rate of torture, correlated with the rate of useful information obtained by torture, I can't really agree with you. The same can be said of surveillance.

So, why wouldn't you be willing to violate the rights of a single man, for potential lives, vs. the rights of millions for potential lives? Unless you have clear, readily available statistics, (which I would be very happy to see) I don't think it's fair to make the conclusion you did.

Because, when it boils down to it, they are both violations of rights for potential benefits.

So, unless there is a clear cut difference in the rate of success, I don't see too much of a difference.

If you read 1984 or watched that one episode of Star Trek that takes a few leafs from 1984's book you would have a precise demonstration of why torture renders any information obtained useless just by the nature of what has been obtained and how. As I've already argued hundreds of times, the only time torture is justifiable or useful is where the information can be verified instantly, and where the lives of a significant number of people are at stake.

You cannot compare violating privacy to subjecting people to pain almost unjustifiably. You might as well be arguing that speed cameras are torture. The entire point here is that all-pervasive surveillance is a preventative measure. It's not about potential benefits, it's about actual benefits. Lives can be saved, and those lives that aren't saved can have Justice done.

Originally Posted by Evilsbane

Well as I said, that's still more of 'democratically sound' law, in that the government is within its rights to pass it - it's not overstepping clearly-defined bounds with a flimsy justification.

That's judicial precedent, and the UK Parliament is capable of passing any law other than one which would bind a future Parliament.

Is the law about duress being irrelevant to treason contradictory to that document?

That depends. I can't think of a single article off-hand that suggests you'd have a right to kill someone to save your own life outside of self-defence, but what I meant is that each of these "rights" is violable in some circumstances even outside of wartime.

If you mean Justice in a 'universal truth' sense, then theoretically yes, but then you have the problem of attempting to either get everyone to agree what that is, or get one person or a handful to decide without being in any way biased. And while the former is extremely difficult, I'd say the latter's impossible.

Well all I say is that what people deserve is objectively justifiable rather than an objective truth, but what I mean is that people shouldn't hold any ideal to be above Justice, and in truth they don't. Whatever your ultimate ideal is serves your idea of Justice and so on, because that's what you think people deserve, and I argue that the protection of any ideal where it would violate Justice to do so is itself unjust.

Based on what? He hasn't done anything, nor is there proof of insanity.

Maybe if he exhibits some form of stalkery or a behavioural pattern common to rapists.

TBH, I would not be surprised if they could - if I understand cloning technology correctly, they would merely need a cell of the person to be cloned, and implant the nucleus of that cell into a 'blank' egg (that is, one with no nucleus). Then you have stem cells, which can be manipulated to become just about any tissue you need it to be. The thing is however, that a person hell-bent on framing you for murder by planting fake DNA evidence could covertly harvest the necessary cells in any number of ways already, I'd wager.

There's that too yes, but I'm not sure that's how you make stem cells. If it is that's another concern but not a very big one.

Let me phrase this another way - never having sex (or having a hysterectomy) is a fool-proof way to never get unexpectedly pregnant, but even if something solves one problem, it's no good if it causes others. 'The cure is worse than the disease' and all that. Especially when there are other methods of prevention. And although anyone COULD be raped, they'd rather take their chances than sign up for Big Brother. The outrage is because we have OTHER ways to prevent and/or punish rape, and a failure of THESE methods is what is upsetting.

"You know, when most people hear 'Big Brother', they immediately think of something bad, but when I hear Big Brother, I think 'hey, I love my big brother'".

What's upsetting is that it happened at all, not that these other methods fail, because rape is one of those crimes that's really hard to prove in a courtroom. This is another problem absolute surveillance could solve - we'd actually know who's right instead of one person's word against another and lawyers trying to use underhanded means to either convict a man for a crime he didn't commit, or humiliate a woman for a traumatising experience.

But then they and everyone else would be mentally raped every day for the rest of their lives. No-one needs to see inside average citizens' toilets. And besides, who watches the watchmen?

Other watchmen. But who watches them? Even more watchmen. Someone's got to watch someone, but we can't keep the chain going forever, so we have to stop it somewhere. Being honest individual cubicles, shower cubicles etc wouldn't need to be watched because if something happened inside them, we'd know from their behaviour in other places.

And in all honesty if people don't mind the idea of a sky wizard watching them all day, every day, not even giving them a moment's peace, surely they're not that bothered by their privacy or lack thereof (unless they are bothered by the idea like I would be).

That seems more to do with human error than with existing laws not going far enough.

Well it was human error, but an error that would not have happened at all if all-pervasive surveillance was existent at the time.

And if the UK jumped off a bridge...

Hey, they're more private than we are.