politicsOn a late trip to Barnes & Noble this evening, I saw a book called Safe: The Race To Protect Ourselves in a Newly Dangerous World . I picked it up and put it down figuring it was just a chicken little, we-need-to-be-afraid-very-very-afraid bit of propaganda. (At a recent Socrates Café, the topic of discussion was ‘What is the use of courage in this relatively safe society? I’ll try to get a write up of that terrific discussion.)
Anyway, perhaps I should give the book a chance. Slate reviewed it here http://slate.msn.com/id/2112986/entry/0/ and favorably considered its recommendation for the use of a hashing scheme (like a privacy key) to allow Big Brother to sift through everyone’s business without knowing who “the everyone” is. Hmmm.
If you acknowledge (in Dershowitz fashion), that the bad thing (in this case, intrusive government infringement of individual privacy) will inevitably happen, it’s best to admit it, set up rules to allow it, and oversee it out in the open. If the controls are in place and overt, we stand a better chance then just closing our eyes and pretending that it’s not happening.
