NSA Spying

[CrAz3D]

Yay for living an automated 'protected' life

[Arta]

Privacy is a right, and an essential one.

[CrAz3D]

Privacy is a right, and an essential one.

Word, I totally agree.

[iago]

With more freedom comes more danger.  Unless you want to drastically limit peoples rights, security has to be strict.

Yeah, strict security is good. Ideally, police would have pictures and dna samples of all citizens, and cameras should be mounted in strategic locations everywhere. This way, any time there is a concern for terrorism, whoever has been moving around the area can be traced down instantly.

Also consider how efficient it would make verifying suspect behaviour - someone calls the police saying they saw someone suspicious moving about. All the police have to do is enter the surveillance system, load up the recording of that location and identify the suspect. They could even have a database of what citizens do, so if someone if moving where they normally do not, they would be identified and tagged immediately. This process could be completely automated, with central computers monitoring citizens and alerting a response force as soon as something out of the ordinary happens.


Edit: This system would be almost completely automated, so there would never be a need to fear any intrusion into your privacy unless you were actually doing suspect things. Only those who were suspect would get anyone watching them. That should definitely dispell any privacy concerns anyone might have.

We should embed RFID chips in everybody's body, make it illegal to not have it.  Then we can reliably track where everybody is at every time of every day, from a satellite.  That would be linked into your system too.

[iago]

I think before we discuss this any further, there is an important concept we're all making assumptions about. 

What is a "human right"?  Why do we have the rights we do?  And why do we deserve to have rights? 

It's a very important question.  It was only fairly recent (last couple hundred years) that what's his name defined what it means to have certain rights.  A big political philosopher.  In any case, we all make certain assumptions about rights.  I make the assumption that they're inalienable, and that all people are entitled to them.  Trust makes the assumption that it's ok for the government to push certain rights aside, if they're a minority and you claim it's for national security.  But in the end, what IS a right? 

[CrAz3D]

*trust says its ok to push rights aside not if they're a minority but if they are statistically more of a risk.

My definition:
A right is something that is paralelled between all people.  It should be recognized by all people.  It should be protected at any cost. 

Now, obviously, "any cost" brings up the question of what is ok to be labeled as a cost.
I believe that inorder to maintain a certain level of safety repeat criminals should be monitored/watched.

There is the question "what about the immigrants/people here on visas/illegal immigrants, aren't they people too?" 
I see it as they are people of a different state (not U.S. state).  We only have the means and ability to protect our own people within our country and must focus on protecting our citizens before any others.  It is in the best interest of our country that the American people are first and foremost in our government's agenda.

As we cannot "control", I use this term losely,  people in other countries, we must protect our citizens further by making sure immigrants/illegal immigrants/workers are not planning an international attack while undercover.  The possibility that a terrorist could gain access to the U.S. simply by moving here & then continuing to communicate overseas is very risky.



AS a side note, I heard something on the news today, just a little blurb from Paul Harvey.
-After 9/11 there were 14 Senators that said "Mr. President, why weren't we told about these people learning to fly airplanes & not land them?  Why didn't you do more to protect us?"  More recently these same 14 Senators say "Mr. President, you are invading our privacy by looking over our shoulder, that is unconstitutional."

An example of the left's amazing ability to flip-flop on any issue.

[hismajesty]

iago, yeah, no I didn't. Minorities are just statistically shown to be of higher risk, and as such deserve more attention. But not just minorites. People like anarchists and stuff should be watched closer than  government lovers.

[CrAz3D]

true dat.
However, I think SPYING isn't right.

[Adron]

We should embed RFID chips in everybody's body, make it illegal to not have it.  Then we can reliably track where everybody is at every time of every day, from a satellite.  That would be linked into your system too.

I was considering RFID tags, but I do not think those are technically viable yet to read from such range. Cameras and face recognition will probably have to do for a while. In the long run, he RFID chips will be in everyone's clothes too, so in case someone refuses to have it implanted, we can still trace them somewhat as long as they are not naked. For now, cameras are better as they can be used to track and identify people whom we have not yet tagged as well.

Also, I see no reason a great amount of privacy would be a human right. There are many circumstances where you give up most of your privacy and do just fine.

[iago]

A right is something that is paralelled between all people.  It should be recognized by all people.
[.........]
We only have the means and ability to protect our own people within our country and must focus on protecting our citizens before any others.  It is in the best interest of our country that the American people are first and foremost in our government's agenda.

That becomes contradictory if the second part of that quote denies them rights, though.  And privacy is a right that all people should have. 

[CrAz3D]

I know, that's how it is though, its gay, you can't define it specifically down to black & white, there is ALWAYS gray/grey (which is it?)

[iago]

I know, that's how it is though, its gay, you can't define it specifically down to black & white, there is ALWAYS gray/grey (which is it?)

Horribly offtopic, but they're both valid spellings for the same word.  Spelling it is kind of a gray area.  Hah *cough*