Re:NSA spying row: Denmark helped US gather data on European...
by mLuby on Monday May 31, 2021 @01:21PM
(#27346252)
If you can guarantee "good" rulers, then even autocracy isn't so bad—the problem is there will inevitably be bad rulers. Even if I 100% agree with the current administration's policies, I'd be foolish to think there won't be a time when another party (whose polices I 100% disagree with) will be voted into power, and be given access to the same tools to use for what I'd consider nefarious ends.
We must ask, when agreeing to give government a new power, how to protect ourselves against their inevitable abuse of that power. The "national security" excuse circumvents that process.
> ...the problem here is that no one really wants to reign it in...
Why shouldn't it spy on people? If the state is fundamentally on our side, that is a win (fuzzy abstract principles like privacy vs. concrete benefits like stopping specific illegal activity). Ditto if the state is neutral. We have no need to keep secrets from a neutral but fundamentally principled entity. Privacy isn't really important enough to worry about if there are just a few bad actors working individually. It'd be a battle of a luxury (privacy) vs a need (security)
It is only because the state is fundamentally not on our side that people should be trying to reign it in and use concepts like privacy to do so. At some point any information the state has will be used by your political adversaries to attack.
Privacy (from the state) isn't worth anything if the starting point is that the administrative state will be a reliable, proper and responsible bearer of power.