[EDIT: This post was written in haste and really needs a ground-up rewrite. Nevertheless, it contains the essential points I wanted to make]
“The innocent have nothing to fear” we are often told by politicians and others attempting to justify the latest public surveillance, snooping and control measures.
Typically, this glib, trite phrase goes unchallenged. Someone in disagreement may guffaw or snort in irritation when hearing it, but only rarely is a good rejoinder or refutation provided.
Well, here’s mine.
The reason why the expression “the innocent have nothing to fear” must be rejected when used as a “smart bomb” justification for liberty-reducing policies, is because the person uttering it is typically attempting to trick listeners into believing that the only thing at stake is the likelihood of them being caught for a misdemeanour. But this is obviously a sleight of hand, being caught for misdemeanours is not the principal concern for the average law abiding citizen.
One real concern is that by having our objections to surveillance, tracking, snooping, data-pooling, etc., continually brushed aside, we will end up in a controlled, gaol-like environment, perhaps free to walk down the corridor without immediate fear of arrest, perhaps free to read the prescribed reading material, free to exercise for the prescribed length of time, and free to eat the prescribed food, but we will nevertheless still be in prison, and that’s a place very few people wish to be.
In addition to the fear of creeping state control over individuals is the fear we have of losing our privacy. We value privacy both for its own sake and on practical grounds. The former clearly so, and if it were not the case we would be happy to have state surveillance cameras within our homes for example, but we’re not happy to have them there. We just don’t want the state to observe us in our homes where we engage in our most intimate behaviour, and we don’t feel obliged to have to provide reasons for that preference, it’s a foundational desire and an integral component of basic individual freedom. Our homes are our innermost bastion of privacy, and personally I’ve yet to meet anyone who would be happy for it to be any other way.
Another objection is that we can never guarantee that our state will always remain benign and act in our best interests. Because of this fact it is simply irresponsible of us to hand over the keys of our personal freedom to people or organizations we cannot trust.
Of course, the government of the day will always claim that it would never do anything to harm us or act against our best interests, but this leads to the most important point I wish to make. It involves the old adage “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Our government acts broadly in our interests because under current political arrangements it must do so. We still have significant power over our political representatives for we have local and general elections and currently our politicians are still ultimately answerable to us. But there is no universal law that guarantees that democracy will always prevail, that our government will always be sure to hold those general elections.
If we allow our government the power to demand that we produce ID cards before we may enter public spaces, if we allow it to track us using CCTV while we drive, cycle and walk, if we allow it to monitor our mobile phone location signals, our ATM and Oyster Card usage, our supermarket purchases, our rubbish bin contents, our email and SMS messages, our phone calls, our web site visits, and more, then the government will become increasingly less afraid of our reactions to its policies. It will be in a position of such profound power over us that the time may well come when “a button could be pressed”, and our liberty could be switched off like a light. In other words, if we allow our government comprehensive control over our lives, it won’t be a democratic government for long. History has taught us this, repeatedly.
Don’t think it could happen? Look at the perilous state of democracy in the USA at the moment. Feast your eyes and ears on these two short videos, this one by a Harvard law professor, and this one by a member of the United States Congress, and then have a look at this article about the administration’s plans for troop deployments on US soil, and go search out the articles detailing the electoral fraud that seems to have become a feature of US political life in recent years. Not concerned? Take a look at the British plans for eco-towns, a perfect device for authoritarian control without needing to dismantle democratic structures. Look at the behaviour of British local authorities, cynically using traffic and parking fines as a means to extort £billions (sic) of extra revenue from citizens. Look at the British government’s equally cynical use of the fear of terrorism and “serious crime” to engage in the most unaccountable, wide-scale and finely grained invasion of privacy ever seen in the history of our country (or that of most others)! Look at the British government’s cynicism towards its own online petitions by introducing measures that millions voted against! Use Google to find the articles that discuss plans to limit alcohol consumption, to coerce our diets and our exercise levels. What’s happening is nothing less than an all-out attack on the freedom of the individual.
Our government is already going bad, and this is with most of our democratic structures still in place. Just what will things be like when it has a sufficient degree of control over us that we won’t be able to move without permission, when we have to swipe a card to leave our homes, when we have to request permission in advance to use a particular thoroughfare, or to associate with others in a particular public place, when every centimeter of our movement is tracked by our phones, chipped cards, CCTV, etc? Just what will it be like then? Many of these measures are already in place. I suspect our government already fears us less, one because it already possesses many of these powers, and two because it has already broken the rules and gotten away with it. We citizens have so far failed to hold it accountable, preferring to watch football, Eastenders and X Factor instead. Its power over us is growing dramatically and each day, it seems, it demonstrates its increasingly pervasive view of the citizenry as a problem that only control and coercion can solve.
And remember, when you do decide to finally act, how will you do it without the government knowing? Just how? Don’t say “strong encryption” as if that’s the saviour of civilization. The value of encryption is hugely reduced if you can’t get access to the network (and they won’t let you have access it if they suspect you of subversive activity). “Sneakernet” you say? Yeah, right. Hopelessly limited and remember, they have cameras, lots of cameras! Besides, how will you tell your fellow “conspirator” that you’re popping over for a visit to discuss the state of the nation? Smoke signals? They’re now listening to the phones and the Net, remember?
If we don’t put a stop to this madness in the next year or two, democracy, open society and accountable government are going to go bye-bye. Let’s face it, parts of them already have — and what did we do?
Update: This morning I asked my brother what his off the cuff response is to the claim that the innocent have nothing to fear, and he replied “Jean Charles De Menzes”.