That said, 13th century England was not supposed to be a government of the people and for the people, so being in a similar situation now is arguably less than ideal.
Governments explicitly "on behalf of the people" are more or less an historical rarity, even if all governments have needed to keep people below the successful armed revolt threshold as a practical matter.
You're ignoring the desires of the people simply because they didn't have the political leverage to gain them.
I am saying that powerful interest groups can, occasionally, half-by-accident, represent the best interests of the powerless. We probably shouldn't rely on them to do so, and it is not the ideal state of affairs, but it can happen.
Thus, furthering lazaroclapp's point that sometimes there are special interests (the church, companies, nobles/rich people) that are aligned with average people. That is beneficial for society, but it in no way is a solution to the problem. We need to actually restructure our government so it is not an oligopoly.
[1] http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPag... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1...
Of course corporations will be pragmatic about when they step in to "protect the people" as you put it. But let's not kid ourselves about governments ever being fully (mostly, even) on the side of the people.
Exactly. What kind of democracy is this?
"Democracy is the most vile form of government" (James Madison)
"A simple democracy is the devil's own government." (Benjamin Rush, signed Declaration of Independence)
"Democracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy..." (John Adams)
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." (Thomas Jefferson)
Many, many more at http://www.godtheoriginalintent.com/democracy_republic_quote... (sorry about the choice of web site, but the selection of quotations is impressive.)
Today democracy is simply a catch-all term.
Just two different beliefs in what serving the people means.
The FBI et al did.
I am weary of this idea that no man is wrong except the man who says he is right. The FBI is an institution that was built by a seriously flawed megalomaniac.
I think in terms of building a just and reasonable federal law enforcement agency, you'd 1) need to pass a federal amendment and 2) not build it upon an overreaching and power hungry organization built by J. Edgar Hoover.
We can do better.
No. Not unless you are omniscient and all-powerful. And even then, still no, because different people are different and want different things.
No one is claiming that the FBI is without fault or even that its actual goal is serving the people. But there are plenty of people out there who have a sincerely held -- and in a few cases even informed -- belief that the FBI is on the right side of this debate.
So respecting natural rights and popular sovereignty are not the right way to serve people? Your perspective on this was the point of Professor Bloom's book, The Closing of the American Mind.
I don't personally care what ill-informed people who are victims of the American Historical Association think about classical liberalism and human freedom.
The FBI will not exist in the future, solely because it is a threat to human freedom and in a better world, such a powerful authoritarian organization won't be needed.
It's really not. GP (or whatever) was saying that perhaps there's a reasonable difference of opinion. You responded by stating the author was wrong becuase "there [is] one best way to serve the people" and accusing GP of relativism (which is clearly a Bad Thing).
> So respecting natural rights and popular sovereignty are not the right way to serve people?
Natural Rights: There are reasonable conceptions of natural rights which allow for the FBI's interpretation of the All Writs Act. The exact scope and meaning of natural rights has never been and never will be resolved. Anyone proclaiming otherwise is just wrong. Hell, the philosophers who originated this concept had heated disagreements about their meaning. Things have only become more convoluted as we've tried to apply this idea in scaled-up settings.
Popular sovereignty: It's not at all clear to me how what the FBI is doing violates popular soverignty. In fact, it seems to me that they are fully engaged in a PR campaign designed, precisely, to leverage the legitimacy of popular sovereignty...
More generally, "natural rigths + popular sovereignty" is not a deterministic algorithm. It's entirely possible for people to adhere to both of thse philosophies and still vehemently disagree on the best way to govern. I might excuse a philosopher for not being able to foresee this fact 2000 or even 300 years ago. But clinging to the notion that "natural rigths + popular sovereignty" is a panacea to political disfunction after the past 200 years is rather astounding.
I happen to strongly agree with Apple and loathe what the FBI is trying to do. But I also think the argument you're making here is dead wrong. The case against the FBI here is not based upon natural rights. It is either based upon constitutional rights, or it is based upon pure pragmatics. And the final answer will almost certainly the latter.
> Your perspective on this was the point of Professor Bloom's book, The Closing of the American Mind.
1. No, it really isn't...
2. I was educated in exactly the style Bloom suggests. Suffice it to say that actually reading the classics has a way of undermining the authority that staunchy old conservative men try to get out of their particular interpretations and applications of ideas expressed in those books.
2a. Damned marxists bastardized Nietzsche and also rock music is for flooseys. lol
3. If Bloom's opinions were at all sincerely held, he would likely have agreed with the observations about natural rights and popular sovereignty given above.
> I don't personally care what ill-informed people who are victims of the American Historical Association think about classical liberalism and human freedom.
Don't worry, I use tin foil bookmarks.
> The FBI will not exist in the future
Okay.
No, they don't have any credibility in the matter. They're working an emotionally poignant tragedy to curry favor for the expansion of their authority.
There may be a few hardcore privacy advocates that buy an iPhone because of this, but it's not going to make any significant change in sales.
And as for criminals, well most of them don't know or care about encryption and aren't thinking far enough ahead about what would happen if the cops seized their phones. The organized "professional" criminals aren't going to rely on device encryption to protect their secrets.
And of course, the cynic in me thinks that Apple (et al) has already given the FBI what they want and this whole case is just public posturing to make the world think that iPhones are immune to government snooping.
It's not so surprising when you consider that corporations can span many countries. Apple doesn't need the U.S. nearly as much as the U.S. needs Apple.
Corporations aren't fundamentally different from the government. Both are just groups of people, at an abstract level.
It's actually not uncommon for local governments to literally exist as incorporated entities. Or for corporations to serve as the de facto government for a region.
It's a relatively recent phenomenon that we view these as completely different concepts, but they're not as distinct as we often think. It's more accurate to think of government as a special case of corporations rather than a completely different concept.
I don't remember who said it, but there is a quote along the lines of: "People should look to the private sector for growth, and to the government for justice. Increasingly, they look to the government for growth and to the private sector for justice."
Edit: Found proper quote and source thanks to mbrock's pointing out where I likely heard it last.
The quote is:
"We have come to rely upon capitalism for justice and the government for economic stimulation, precisely the opposite of what reason would suggest." - Donald Kaul
And it comes from here: http://articles.philly.com/1990-10-17/news/25891604_1_budget... (Timothy Taylor did quote Kaul in the podcast mentioned in the comment below)
Yes, and that is the problem. Both are enormous institutions with tremendous wealth, resources, and power over individuals. A democracy is supposed to check this kind of power, but instead we're relying on it, only from a different source. The corporations' interests are currently aligned with the people's only by good fortune. When they're not, who will check them? Who will check the government?
Corporate interests are not a sustainable, effective, or remotely wise defense of liberty. The fact that Cook and Zuckerberg are doing our fighting for us is evidence that the correct methods are not functioning properly.
It's more accurate to think of governments as a special case of corporations.
Governments don't always "include everyone", and as we've seen, they definitely don't necessarily act on their constituents' behalf.
In certain contexts, corporations have also been responsible for creating and enforcing law, even though that's not the context we are used to today in the US.
I really wonder what Apple would do if Chinese government asks similar backdoor. May be they have already complied.
So Apple is all we've got left. The top-rank leftists in our politics today—Hillary, Sanders, and Obama—are all failing us.
[1] - http://www.npr.org/2014/07/28/335288388/when-did-companies-b...
What was really revealing was Tim Cook's answer on 60 minutes when pinned down about Apple's international tax strategies - why don't you being this money back to the US thereby making it taxable. His answer essentially: because I don't want to.
Privacy, tax avoidance, H1Bs - more showdowns to come.
Well, he also doesn't HAVE to. If you don't HAVE to do something, especially if it's beneficial to not do that thing, why would you?
http://www.npr.org/2016/02/22/467602161/the-seeds-of-apples-...
This is an entirely new stance from Apple. Historically, they've been on the other side.
No, there really aren't. From the article:
"The cases are different, but the underlying legal question is very similar," says Alex Abdo, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union. "The question in the New York case is whether the government can rely on this very old statute to conscript Apple into government service."
Moreover, the "ask" in this case is nearly identical. Apple is being asked only to bypass the 10-failed-attempt device wipe, so that investigators can enumerate all 10,000 codes:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/02/encryption-isnt-at-stak...
...which means that it's effectively exactly the same thing that Apple has done in previous cases. The only technological difference is one that has been manufactured by Apple.
This whole thing boils down to a question of whether or not Apple should facilitate a brute-force attack on a single phone, under a search warrant, for a known criminal. And they've done same thing 70-some times in the past.
Everything that you've read about a "backdoor" or a "key" is totally uninformed commentary on the matter. The intarwebz are outraged (outraged!), but they don't even understand the debate.
The other times weren't though.
> they don't even understand the debate
Look in a mirror lately?
Just as easy? Maybe if you ignore the effort to create it and secure it. I really can't believe writing secure software is being trivialized in the comments here.
The only difference is that this time the software they install would also have to turn off the delete-after-ten-attempts thing.
(You're probably having a hard time with this because the debate sounds absoultely ridiculous when the facts are laid out plainly. Totally understandable. The technical debate is absolutely ridiculous. The legal debate is the only one that matters, but it's not technical at all.)