Kv1at3485,
Removing a great many of the cameras in public places would obviously be a good idea, but the government could always put smaller hidden ones in their place.
As for preventing electronic eavesdropping, that's much harder to enforce. It can be dune surreptitiously, and in secret. The only way we'd know is if someone came forward.
Lindley,
This gives the government a lot more than it currently has. The ability to gather the data is already there, but using A.I. to be able to organize it, compile a dossier on everybody so detailed that it could even gain insights into what the person is thinking, what they will and will not do. Yes, a human being will of course have to ask the computer for the information, but this would provide the person with everything there is to know about everybody.
It is completely excessive, it's antithetical to a free-society, and this kind of development will totally destroy any concept of privacy and may even usher in a "Minority Report" kind of society.
Of course it may have some good uses, but the disastrous misuses that it would bring, which I already mentioned, far outweigh the benefits.
If I cannot convince you why this is a bad idea, and cannot convince you why it's bad to have a society which is constantly being monitored, has no freedom from unreasonable search and seizures, I don't think anyone can convince you why this is indeed a bad idea.
As for your argument that if we regulate or stifle any technological development we'd be back in the stone-age, that's is simply nonsense -- it's not true. We wouldn't suddenly regress to the stone-age. Now, I don't believe we should stifle *all* technological development, but there are some doors that probably shouldn't be opened, but not every technological capability should or must be embraced.
For example, I feel it is perfectly appropriate to regulate or stifle technological development that would be used to say develop a weapon that could be designed to selectively kill only ethnic groups while not harming the others. Such a weapon would be unconscionable and truly evil.
As for your comment about the UK having loads of CCTV cameras in greater amounts than we do, you probably would find it interesting to know what it's original purpose was for. The idea wasn't to stop crime, it was in the event that a terrorist act was perpetuated, they could find out who did it.
Regardless, though, the government should not be placing so many cameras in public. They shouldn't be going around monitoring every person or thing that moves in a public place. There are many people, including a number of men and women at the ACLU who consider the UK to be one of the most pervasive surveillance societies. Among this listing of the worst includes China, a country with a lengthly history of egregious civil rights violations.
All of this surveillance stems from the desire to be safe, and I understand that, but there is no such thing as 100% safety existing with anything greater than 0% freedom. To be honest, I'd rather have a little risk in life and have some freedom from big-brother monitoring every aspect of my existence, than live in a perfectly safe society and not have any privacy or any freedom.
STR,
You are obviously not comprehending a key piece of information. Because you can do something, does not mean you should. The NSA should not be monitoring every single American's phone-call, internet-transmissions, e-mails, and such.
As for the government being bound by all sorts of laws... that pretty much disappeared under Bush. The NSA pretty much monitored anything and everything. Something they are not supposed to be doing, they didn't have any warrant, the President simply felt that as unitary executive, decider, and dictator, that he can do it, he had the power and did it.
Non government entities violating privacy rights is a good point to raise, but if that entity is giving the government the data, doesn't that sort of make them complicit in the act?
As for the people communicating online, we're a communicative species. We talk, we chat, we post pictures. Granted I think a lot of people post way too much about themselves, which is indeed a problem. Still, the fact remains that our government is not supposed to start monitoring anything and everything. This is not the Soviet Union, this the United States of America for godssakes!
And I know the NSA is not a monolithic organization in which every person thinks exactly the same. There are individual differences, between individuals and there are some people even in the NSA, which actually have something called a conscience and give a damn about things like civil-liberties. The fact that a couple of them came to their senses and reported it doesn't make what the NSA did was right or that the bulk of their workers are ethical, it simply meant a few people in there had a conscience. I would not be surprised if the NSA learned the wrong lesson from all of this and is now making damn sure that such people are never involved with domestic-surveillance ever again so they won't get the whistle blown on them again.
CuttingEdge100
