The Surveillance State
Article 3772 of talk.politics.crypto:
Path: grapevine.lcs.mit.edu!PIRANHA.LCS.MIT.EDU!douzzer
From: douzzer@PIRANHA.LCS.MIT.EDU (Daniel G. Pouzzner)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.crypto
Subject: Re: What's so bad about a Surveillance State?
Date: 14 Mar 1994 22:02:12 GMT
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what's _good_ about a successfully implemented surveillance state?
unusual, disruptive, or violent behavior is almost completely stamped
out. illegal substances become absolutely impossible to obtain, hold,
or use (by "substances," i mean stolen property and/or legally
regulated/prohibited materials). anyone who commits a crime is
guaranteed to receive the "appropriate" sentence, and guaranteed to
serve it, since there is no way to run away and no way to hide. thus
the power of the deterrent (itself limited) is maximized.
what's _bad_ about a successfully implemented surveillance state?
passing over the obvious tendency toward widespread paranoid thought
patterns, i'll start with effects on social processes.
unusual, innovative, or unapproved behavior is almost completely
stamped out. unconstitutional legislation inspired by special
interest lobbying, especially that regarding substances and
lifestyles, is actually enforced rather than simply warning people to
make sure to be sufficiently discrete. universal surveillance
precludes "out of sight, out of mind" solutions to social conflicts.
surveillance states implement an absolute tyranny of the status quo as
defined by either the majority, or by an oligarchy, and usually by
some combination thereof. they defeat the segmentation of the state.
the goal of the executive branch is, first and foremost, to uphold and
enforce the Constitution of the United States and its amendments. that
of the legislative is to extend the Constitution such that it applies
to more current situations with *maximal* concurrence in spirit with
the original document. that of the judicial is to interpret it, to the
best of their abilities, for appropriate application. a surveillance,
or police state, cannot be the product of this segmented system. it
would be the result of an abandonment of the Constitution, and the
United States of America would cease to be.
as it is, our nation is laced with unconstitutional legislation at the
local, state, and federal level, but in general this legislation is
overturned when it is brought to a court at a level higher than that
of the congress that enacted the law. this checking of legislative
power would tend to be diminished as the nation tended toward
universal surveillance and absolute accountability of the citizenry to
a monolithic state.
as a thinker, and as an unusual person, the portions of the
Constitution that are most dear to me concern privacy, pursuit of
happiness, right to property, and federal "checks and balances." the
standardization and forced endorsement (through a federal buying
program using *my tax dollars*) of an escrowed encryption system
violates, at the very least, my right to privacy. key escrow renders
the government privy to any and every communication in which i engage,
source destination and content, and the Constitution was never
intended to be construed such that the state had this power (quite the
contrary!). mandated encryption algorithms, and prohibition of
unapproved algorithms, are such obvious, blatant, direct violations
(and not simply a violation in spirit) of the Constitution that i
believe it will not even be formally proposed, so it's the insidious
chipping away that must be vigilantly monitored and brought into the
bright lights of the public stage. of late, this deciphering of the
cryptocrat's agenda is indeed occuring in mainstream press.
the very large databases now being constructed to encompass law
enforcment and government organizations at all levels across the
nation violate, at least in spirit, the system of checks and balances
with which the framers endowed the Constitution. a Massachusetts
department of motor vehicles should not, repeat *not*, be privy to the
number of library late fines i have outstanding in Minnesota. as it
is, if they were outstanding in Minnesota i would be prevented from
obtaining a Massachusetts driver's license. even the DMV's involved in
this program disapprove, but this is how things work in 1994. in 1995
it will only be worse, and by 2000 different pieces of the government
will be able to collude, in violation of the Constitution, to make any
information *any* agency has obtained on an individual citizen
instantly available to all other agencies, and potentially to anyone
at all. corporations are heading toward a similar degree of
information integration, in violation in spirit of antitrust
legislation.
the age of information has been here for a while, but only in the last
ten years has it found its stride and entered the mainstream with
force. if it continues unchecked, and if law makers and law enforcers
of the nation are not brought to understand how to deal with this new
battlefield while at the same time being true to their highest
calling, faith to their Constitution, then a showdown is on the
horizon. alas, we can draw the lines already.
returning to the specific original theme of the surveillance state:
the linchpin of any attempt to fundamentally discredit such a scheme
is the realization that no legal system will ever be without flaw, nor
will any enforcement system. it is the fuzziness of the state that
allows for certain social innovations to occur. these innovations form
the leading edge of society and always have, and i believe they must
be permitted, if not encouraged. the current near-vacuum in
high-quality policy and legislation regarding information automation
and connectivity needs to be filled to account for the rising
importance of full-fledged societies existing inside computerized
networks.
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--
-daniel (douzzer@athena.mit.edu) i've been here and i've been there and
key 0B 99 0D 4F E8 55 9A 95 i've been inbetween. i talk to the wind,
print 43 C1 7F B5 DF 8F E3 33 my words are all carried away.
key: finger douzzer@ai.mit.edu the wind cannot hear.