Brian,
I love the concept of souveillance (and the related concept of
undersight).
While I agree with Joe Dehn that there is no right to be forgotten, I
do think it is desirable from a libertarian standpoint for institutions to
"forget" individuals by default, and upon request. We as individuals are freer
and safer when we control our own information.
Calling any information "ours" may be misleading though. I don't
believe intellectual property is a valid philosophical concept, thus I don't
think we can legitimately own information. I've also recently come to the
conclusion (contrary to longstanding talking points widely used by libertarians
including myself!) that we don't technically own ourselves. Rather, we are
ourselves – a subject-subject relationship that precedes and supersedes the
subject-object relationship of ownership. Thoughts and memories can be said to
be "ours" by default unless we share them with others however, and I would look
askance at any notion that it's okay for others to probe or reach into our
minds and access them without our consent. I like the mantra, "individual
privacy, institutional transparency".
Getting rid of IP would eliminate some of the rationales for government
policing of data about which you express concern, as well as limiting the power
and immortality of institutions, which I think is important. Since, unlike
human beings, human institutions have no natural lives that expire at some
point, their "ownership" of information is key to their ability to exist in
perpetuity. And I'm increasingly skeptical that we should want them to be able
to exist in perpetuity. Again it is not un-libertarian per se for them to do
so, but I think it tends to be bad for freedom. It has been observed that over
time institutions tend to become more authoritarian, rule-bound, ossified, etc.
When they become large, which is often a function of time, they can tend to
become more authoritarian. When Thomas Jefferson said it would be desirable to
have a revolution every generation, I think his instincts were sound.
The idea of government providing too much democracy, or too much
privacy, is interesting. Having embraced anarchy, I would prefer government not
"provide" anything at all, and I can see dangers in both cases. However I also
see both democracy and individual privacy as things that, given present
circumstances, tend to make society more libertarian, not less, and to enhance
the power of individuals not the power of government. On the whole, I don't
think we have too much of either right now, but rather too little.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
On Sep 21, 2021, at 5:02 PM, Brian Holtz wrote:
Starchild, I wonder how you feel about laws enforcing a so-called
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten. It would be bad enough ;
for government to conduct mass surveillance of public spaces. It's
potentially far worse for government to police all the data stored and shared
by private citizens, using rationales like anti-pornography, copyright,
"right to be forgotten", privacy, anti-crypto, protecting children, etc.
I'm a big fan of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance. I'm a big fan
of police having to run bodycams. I'm a big fan of citizens recording and
sharing imagery of government abuses and other injustices. Bryan Caplan
points out that in our society, nobody dares say the government is providing
too much democracy, too much healthcare, too much education, or too much
environmental protection. I worry that "privacy" will join these Four
Horsemen of Statism. Libertarians should be willing to say that governments
often do provide too much of each of these five things.
On Tue, Sep 21, 2021 at 4:15 PM Starchild <sfdreamer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I would note also that not everything that's bad for freedom is
itself a violation of the Non-Aggression Principle or otherwise in direct
violation of libertarian ethics.
The collection of mass data on others (including video footage) by
voluntary sector institutions or individuals not working for government is a
good case in point. While such data collection is not itself un-libertarian,
such data, once collected, may be turned over to government actors, whether
voluntarily or otherwise, and then become a tool of oppression. It's worth
considering in any given case, "What is the person or organization collecting
this data likely to do if confronted with a governmental demand to turn it
over to them?"
I believe it behooves libertarians to evaluate laws, policies, and
actions based not only on our traditional (and still very much valid!)
questions, "Is this voluntary?" and "Does this violate anyone's rights?", but
also, "Will this tend to make society more libertarian, or more
authoritarian?" and "Will this do more to further individual rights and
liberty, or institutional power and government control?"
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
On Sep 21, 2021, at 3:48 PM, Jeff Chan wrote:
On Tuesday, September 21, 2021, 12:13:32 PM, Brian Holtz wrote:
Looking for pointers to libertarian analyses of license plate cams.
Example:
https://reason.com/volokh/2020/04/22/automated-license-plate-readers-the-mosaic-theory-and-the-fourth-amendment/
My default position would be:
- owners of private property are free to record and share information
that is visible from that property using "ordinary" means
- private citizens using public rights-of-way are free to record and
share information that is visible to them via "ordinary" means
- organizations with police powers (e.g. governments, not HOAs) should
not operate mass-surveillance systems, but can issue search warrants into
such systems
I worry about government mass-surveillance, but I also worry about
"privacy" laws that give government the power to restrict what information
private individuals can record and share.
Hi Brian,
Those positions look generally reasonable to me. I too would be
interested in any formal libertarian positions/theory.
To me, anything a private individual would be able to see in a public
space should be ok to record, same as seeing it visually and writing
down a note (or creating a memory) of what one saw, but arguably less
fallible to human frailties such as cognitive biases and errors.
Government force, including police state surveillance, should be
severely restricted by law and government should follow its own laws
(it often doesn't; and "who guards the guards?" Quis custodiet ipsos
custodes? ).
That all said, the entire world is moving towards a police state and
possible world socialist government police state. China's massive
surveillance system including facial recognition, etc., and "social
credit scores" fit perfectly into that paradigm, which unfortunately
is a template for most other governments. And all of it fit's
perfectly into Klaus Schwab's fascistic "Great Reset". Please study
and understand it.
But perhaps the most insidious tool for government control over people
are impending central bank digital currencies. They are fully traceable,
unalterable; a permanent record of every transaction and transactee in
the formal economy; a perfect tool for police states to tax, track,
punish, control the entire economic lives, cradle to grave, of
everyone who uses government money. And they are also outlawing private
cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency exchanges with the formal economy.
All of this is in the public record, public legislation, etc., in the
U.S., EU, China; it's not conspiracy theory.
Sorry for going slightly off topic, but government (video and other)
surveillance networks fit into this scheme perfectly, so it's not
totally unrelated.
In Liberty,
Jeff C.
--
Jeff Chan
mailto:webmaster@xxxxxxxx
http://rkba.org/
"Switzerland exported democracy to America by being a shining,
stable example of freedom which America's founders imperfectly
copied. It did not invade America and replace its government."
