We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
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For an attack on many of the articles that get cited here, arguing that the US Government’s War on Terror is dangerous for civil liberties, see Straight Talk on Homeland Security by Heather Mac Donald in City Journal (lLink from Iain Murray). Penultimate paragraph:
When the War on Terror’s opponents intone, “We need not trade liberty for security,” they are right – but not in the way they think. Contrary to their slogan’s assumption, there is no zero-sum relationship between liberty and security. The government may expand its powers to detect terrorism without diminishing civil liberties one iota, as long as those powers remain subject to traditional restraints: statutory prerequisites for investigative action, judicial review, and political accountability. So far, these conditions have been met.
We here are mostly not opponents of the War on Terror, but we are opponents of it being used as an excuse to expand government power in ways that will then be available to government officials to use across the board.
We agree here that it isn’t a zero sum thing between liberty and security, but that’s because we believe security is best protected by free people protecting themselves and each other. Some of us might even agree that the government “may” expand is powers with no harm done, but that’s hardly the point, is it? “So far, these conditions have been met.” And there the disagreement really begins. But that “So far” suggests that we and Heather Mac Donald might in due course all be re-united.
In more traditional police-states, citizens may be blissfully unaware that they have done wrong until they are woken in the wee small hours by an ominous rapping on their front doors. In modern police-state Britain, the knock on the door is to be replaced by the thud on the doormat.
If this report from the UK Times is accurate (and it is just about creepy enough to be true) then it may be time to think about buying a bicycle:
EVEN George Orwell would have choked. Government officials are drawing up plans to fit all cars in Britain with a personalised microchip so that rule-breaking motorists can be prosecuted by computer.
Dubbed the “Spy in the Dashboard” and “the Informer” the chip will automatically report a wide range of offences including speeding, road tax evasion and illegal parking. The first you will know about it is when a summons or a fine lands on your doormat.
The plan, which is being devised by the government, police and other enforcement agencies, would see all private cars monitored by roadside sensors wherever they travelled.
Who the bloody hell are the ‘other enforcement agencies’? And the very notion of an informer in every vehicle! Saddam Hussein could only dream about that level of control.
Police working on the “car-tagging” scheme say it would also help to slash car theft and even drug smuggling.
The same old, same old. Every accursed and intrusive state abuse is sold to the public as a cure for crime and ‘drug-dealing’. The fact that it still works is proof that we live in the Age of Bovine Stupidity. A media advertising campaign showing seedy drug-dealers and leering child-molesters being rounded up as a result of this technology will have the public begging for a ‘spy in the dashboard’.
Having already expressed my doubts about the viability of new government schemes here I should add that the fact that this relies on technology rather than human agency means it just might.
The next step is an electronic device in your car which will immediately detetct any infringement of any regulation, then lock the doors, drive you to a football stadium and shoot you. HMG is reported to be very interested and is launching a feasibility study.
[This item has been cross-posted on Samizdata.]
This has obvious White Rose relevance:
Tony Blair is to announce plans to put up to half a million children deemed at risk of becoming criminals or getting into other trouble on a new computer register.
Teachers, family doctors and other professionals working with youngsters will be asked to name potential troublemakers whose personal details will then be placed on the database.
The new “identification, tracking and referral” system will allow the authorities to share information on vulnerable children, including their potential for criminal activity.
It will be an extension of the child protection register which, at present, is restricted to listing the names and addresses of children who are vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse.
Professionals will be encouraged to include other factors, such as the likelihood of teenage pregnancy or the risk of “social exclusion”, in deciding which children should be monitored.
I think the scary thing about this is the combination of the precision and reach of a computer database with the subjectivity of some of the judgements concerning “potential” that are stored on it. Plus: Who gets to look at this database, and what decisions do they make in the light of the opinions collected in it?
The criminal law, in contrast, is (or ought to be) about what you have done, not about what someone merely thinks you might do.
But as so often here, I report, but can only speculate about those implications that we all need to think about. Perhaps others can be more definite.
The BBC reports that US Attorney General John Ashcroft has launched a strident defence of the controversial Patriot Act, saying it was the government’s responsibility to defend Americans in any way it could.
Mr Ashcroft highlighted support for the Patriot Act given earlier by members of Congress and the website lists quotations from members of both parties supporting the legislation, almost wholly dating back to October 2001 when it was introduced.
But since then dozens of cities and counties across the country have approved resolutions criticising the Patriot Act and various lawsuits have been brought to declare it unconstitutional.
Even the Republican-led House of Representatives has become involved in recent weeks, striking down “sneak-and-peek” rules which allowed government agents to search private property without telling the owner.
Other controversial areas – such as agents being allowed to scrutinise people’s library records without showing what crime they believe could be being committed – still stand despite challenges.
I’ve just done a posting here using this BBC report, about the Prince William 21st Birthday break-in at Windsor Castle, concerning the matter of who is supposed to watch all the surveillance cameras that the world is now being flooded with.
But another point about that report struck me as also worth commenting on, and in a separate posting. One thing at a time, and all that.
Here’s the bit that particularly caught my attention, concerning the report on the incident that has just been published:
The report – by Commander Frank Armstrong of the City of London force – gives 28 recommendations for changes to the way the Royal Family is protected in future.
Among them, it calls for legislation to create a new offence of trespassing on royal or government property.
Now is it just me, or is this not a rather odd thing to recommend? Surely the problem that this “comedian” posed to police that night was not that they didn’t have the law on their side to enable them to stop something bad. It was simply that they didn’t do the job that the law already gave them ample entitlement to do.
It’s extremely common among silly people who know no better, such as voters and politicians, to want to solve every problem that ever happens by suggesting a new law to stop it. I once took part in a vox-pop studio debate of the sort one agrees to be on but would never dream of watching, in which one of my fellow debaters on the subject of bank robbery came within about a quarter of a second of saying, on national television, that there ought to be a law against it. Okay, from the mere public you can maybe expect no better. But when a senior police officer, invited to comment on a security cock-up and suggest lessons to be learned, also reaches for the law, we really are in trouble, it seems to me.
It may be that in this particular case, there really is good reason to think that a “new offence” should indeed be created. But me, I choose to doubt it.
So what? A policeman thinks a new crime should be invented. Why does that matter?
It matters because there is already a Himalayan mountain range of legislation, with tons more pouring forth from Parliaments everywhere, every day, week, month, year.
And a world in which there is so much law that nobody – not even lawyers, let alone policemen, politicians, and certainly not the general public – can possibly be aware of what it all consists of is not a good world to live in. It actually has quite a lot in common with a world with no law at all.
I don’t know when it happened, but some years ago I came to two conclusions about my own personal law-abidingness. (1) At any particular moment I am probably always breaking some damn law or other. (2) To hell with it. I still try to be good. But I have given up trying to obey the law.
The trouble starts for me if the powers-that-be, or more likely a power-that-is decide(s) that they (it) want(s) to get me. Suppose I surprise all of us and say something here which really angers the government, or, more likely, some particular powerful individual towards the top end of it. In a world of infinite law, this person can be absolutely confident that a search for a law that I am breaking will turn up something, and maybe a great deal. He may never take it as far as me having to talk my way out of it in a court of law, but he may be able to make a deal of trouble for me nevertheless, just by going through the legal motions and stopping them just before they go public, but not letting me know about that until the last minute.
Remember all those poets and academics who used to annoy the government of the old USSR? What did the government of the USSR do to them? Did it complain about their poems, or have complicated arguments with them about the nuances of how to interpret the Soviet “Constitution”? Did it hell? It just found some law that the poor wretch had been breaking (because everyone broke the law in the old USSR – just to stay alive) and set the legal wheels in motion. I mean, we can’t have currency smuggling, now can we? Course not.
That’s the world we may find ourselves in quite soon, and I dare say that the experience of not a few persons is that we are already there. It may seem a long argument from a policeman trying to avoid blaming idiot fellow policemen for some policing fiasco and instead blaming the law, to Soviet dissidents, but I hope I have explained that there is a genuine connection here. Discuss.
The government has enthusiastically taken up the cause of introducing more ‘flexible’ voting methods in order to increase electoral turnout. The fragility of their new experimental systems was brought home to me when my father asked me to witness his postal vote (a requirement that is now being dropped). I wasn’t too concerned because he was voting for the Residents Association rather than a political party.
I am not the only one. The e-voting systems have been criticised. Dr Ben Fairweather, Research Fellow at De Montford University, has analysed the local elections and found some disturbing results. These involved eighteen elections and 1.5 million voters.
He said the system used in Shrewsbury and Kerrier, Cornwall adopted a CESG security model that called for candidate codes to be sent to voters by post, as a security precaution. But people could request this information online on the day in violation of this security policy.
In Sheffield matters were worse. Many polling stations were without an Internet connection on polling day. As a result voters could get a vote at a poling station while still being able to vote again online from home.
The good fellow is also concerned about inappropriate influences within the home, and one could point to our more tight-knit communities where vulnerable members could be forced to vote for particular candidates. These changes encourage communalism in voting patterns.
“For one thing how do you know who’s in the room with someone when they vote and how can you be sure they are not trying to influence someone’s vote?” he asked.
Dr Fairweather’s work is here. The Foundation for Information Policy Research made similar criticisms.
So far, none of these elections have been rerun, even though their flaws have been documented.
In an amazingly petty act of vengeful spite, the US Treasury Department is fining a peace protestor $10,000. Faith Fippinger was one of many who went to Iraq to act as a “human shield”. She has now been told that her action was in breach of trade sanctions because whilst in Iraq she spent around $200, mainly on food and water. She has also been accused of “providing services” to the Iraqi regime by her presence.
If she can’t or won’t pay she could face 12 years in jail.
Whether or not you supported the war, the right to protest against it was supposedly one of the things that US citizens had and Iraqi citizens were denied. Now a minor technical breach of sanctions legislation is being used to punish a citizen who dared exercise her civil liberties.
The message from King George’s regime is clear: defy us at your peril.
BBC report here
Cross-posted from An It Harm None
An international coalition of 47 civil liberties groups and consumer rights campaigns sent a letter to the European Union today urging rejection of the proposed Intellectual property Enforcement Directive .
The coalition warns that the proposed Directive is overbroad and threatens civil liberties, innovation, and competition policy. It requires EU Member States to criminalize all violations of any intellectual property right that can be tied to any commercial purpose, with penalties to include imprisonment. Andy Müller-Maguhn, a board member of European Digital Rights and speaker for the Chaos Computer Club explains:
If this proposal becomes a reality, major companies from abroad can use ‘intellectual property’ regulations to gain control over the lives of ordinary European citizens and threaten digital freedoms. Under this proposal, a person’s individual liberty to use his own property is replaced with a limited license that can be revoked or its terms changed at any time and for any reason.
Ville Oksanen, a lawyer and Vice Chairman of Electronic Frontier Finland (EFFi) who signed the letter, points out:
Currently EU-Member states are implementing the EU Copyright Directive and the EU Software Patent Directive is next in the line. We should really wait and see what effect these new laws have before adding any new legislation organizational letter. Contrary to what the Enforcement Directive claims, Member States are already obliged by international treaties like TRIPS to protect intellectual property rights.
The letter marked the launch of the Campaign for an Open Digital Environment (CODE) to raise awareness about the IP Enforcement proposal’s threat to consumer rights and market competition. → Continue reading: IP Enforcement Directive – DMCA on steroids
The attitude of most people like me, who live in London, is that civil liberties are only of interest at present if they will blow very cold air at you. Nevertheless, I can just about sit long enough next my computer (equals fan heater) to tell you that these people (“Unpersons – a British group-blog focusing primarily on UK, EU and Anglosphere affairs from a free-market laissez faire perspective” – they got started last month) seem like they are going to be good and of interest on the civil liberties front. They have a “civil liberties” category, and if you click on that you get good stuff, although of course everything they say won’t suit everyone here (e.g. guns etc.).
Their latest is a discussion of how a DNA database of spit spat at British Railway staff is being talked about.
“Ashcroft is on a binge”, says South Knox Bubba.
This “Victory Act” (who comes up with this stuff? is it induced by copious applications of Crisco to the brain?) slipped through the media’s All Kobe All Arnold All The Time cracks, as did Herr Ashcroft’s new sentencing guidelines directives for prosecutors.
Crisco? Kobe? Arnold I’ve heard of. And Ashcroft, of course. The links, both to TalkLeft, are both worth following.
I’m telling you, this chipping away at the Constitution and civil liberties is going to cost the GOP some votes.
And then there’s another link to this guy (a blogspotter) and you have to scroll down to the bits that matter, both called “Will it ever stop?” and dated Wed Aug 6 and Fri Aug 8.
Whilst The Philosophical Cowboy may indeed be too paranoid about this, there are also 100% legitimate civil liberties issues involved, even without the slippery slope concerns:
“Iain Murray has more on an on-going natural justice train-wreck: basically, the government has found it can’t define abuse precisely enough for legislative purposes, so, in the words of the head of the Family Planning association, they’re going to criminalise
“behaviour [ defined so broadly that it] could include common petting activities such as kissing and touching, through to full sexual intercourse…. This kind of sexual exploration is completely normal and an important part of adolescent development. If the bill is passed without any amendments, such activity could carry a prison sentence of up to five years.””. I.e. any “sexual activity” by anyone under 16, even with their peers, is illegal.
“”The criminal law has a very poor record for influencing consenting sexual behaviour,” she said. “The bill devalues true abuse from desired sexual activity by failing to distinguish the two.”
The Home Office accepted Ms Weyman’s interpretation of the bill, but said there was no plan to change it.”
Now, as I say, I’m not normally paranoid. But this strikes me as a gift to a regime, sorry, government (“regime” came automatically, I’m not sure why) that wants to suppress dissent. A law that would automatically criminalise the normal behaviour of a government’s opponents (as well, of course, of its own offspring) is an open invitation to abuse.
Perhaps jury nullification (a refusal to convict) might save kids maliciously prosecuted because of who their parents were, but any offenses sent to judge-only courts (coming to a mistrial near you soon….) would presumably lead to convictions, even with minimal sentences. And then a life-sentence of a “sex offender” registration.
Who’d oppose a government when they have a perfectly legal means to destroy your children’s lives? What an incredibly stupid (and pernicious) idea.
This post by The Philosophical Cowboy isn’t exactly on the standard issues of White Rose, but does have a civil liberties fringe – basically, it appears we might be in for a resurgance of arguments for high taxes, based on alleged “negative externalities” of earning more money.
The solution? A 30% marginal tax rate to penalise the “pollution” involved, and a 30% additional tax to, well, just encourage people to take time off.
It’s worth reading for more background, and (a lot more objections), but I think this is the key objection that can be raised, and should be if this idea gets more circulation:
“But the main issue is a moral one. Let us stipulate that there are negative externalities from me working an extra 10 hours a week – I make X number of people feel bad, and I also substitute some leisure time I’d probably have rather not given up. So what?
Lots of rights have the potential for negative externalities. Without even being nasty, my use of my right to free speech can see myriads of your pleasing illusions shattered, destroying your happiness. I can act in innumberable ways that can make you uncomfortable or unhappy – I have a moral obligation to be a good neighbour, but the right not to (within obvious limits); I can drive you out of business by building a better mousetrap; my less reputable mates can date your daughter or woo away your significant other; I can advocate political positions you consider reprehensible (just ask me). And whilst I probably wouldn’t do most of those, I pretty much have the right to, and the government doesn’t get to stop me just because it would make you sad.
So why do you get to take 30% of my income just because me exercising my right to work as and where I can find useful things to do, just because it makes you want to work harder? There are certain “negative externalities” that shouldn’t be compared to things like pumping oil into a river, noise next door, etc – they’re not even the same ball game.
I think it’s fair to say (correct me if I’m wrong) you get to complain about a negative externality if it reduces the value of your property or that you extract from some right of yours. But just because me working harder can cause you to value your leisure less, doesn’t mean you should tax me – after all, on that rational, Martin Luther should have been hit with a 90% tax to pay for the Protestant work ethic…”
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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