Finding the right balance between security and liberty

[ProSense]

Finding the right balance between security and liberty

By E.J. Dionne Jr.

The hardest thing in an argument is to acknowledge competing truths. We know that our government will continue with large-scale surveillance programs to prevent future terrorist attacks. We also know that such programs have operated up to now with too little public scrutiny and insufficient concern over their long-term implications for our rights and our privacy.

The response to Edward Snowden’s leaks about what our government has been up to should thus be a quest for a new and more sustainable balance among security, privacy and liberty. And the fact that some people in each of our political parties have switched sides on these questions is actually an opportunity. We can have a debate on the merits, liberated from the worst aspects of partisanship.

A good place to start would be the bill introduced Tuesday by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) requiring the attorney general to declassify significant opinions by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. To have a thoughtful discussion, we need to know what authority our government has, and claims to have, under the Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Merkley notes that his bill was carefully drawn to protect intelligence “sources and methods.” It focuses on the release of the court’s substantive legal interpretations. Among the bill’s seven other sponsors are two Republicans. One of the pair, Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada, said in a statement that “ensuring Americans’ safety is one of our government’s most important responsibilities.” The bill is “a measured approach” toward more transparency.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ej-dionne-merkley-surveillance-bill-tries-to-balance-security-and-liberty/2013/06/12/ce07b4a8-d392-11e2-8cbe-1bcbee06f8f8_story.html

Senators: End Secret Law
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022993363

[sibelian]

1. "...balance..."

Sure. Balance.

[sibelian]

2. "Measured" also, I see.

That's a nice, cuddly word. I like the sound of "measured".

What have they measured, I wonder? What did they measure it with?

Conjures up all sorts of lovely, friendly images.

[JW2020]

3. If you rely on somebody else for security

then you are relinquishing your freedom to that person.

[JaneyVee]

5. The American Revolution relied on others for security. Notably France & Spain.

[JW2020]

6. The Continental Congress didn't relinquish any powers to those nations.

And they didn't rely on Spain and France.

[JaneyVee]

7. Who paid for the Revolution? I mean it says right there in the Constitution:

establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

I think National security was pretty high up on the Founders list of things Govt. should be in the business of.

[JW2020]

8. National Security?

The Founding Fathers?



They talked about the dangers of a standing army. And they would never have referred to anything as "National". That didn't come around until Lincoln.

[JaneyVee]

9. Yes, during peace time.

[KharmaTrain]

4. Depends On Whose Doing The Balancing...

...the disconcerting thing about the abuses we're learning about involving the NSA is that they're happening under an administration most of us do trust and want to believe are being done within the law...that it's datamining basic information and that there are safeguards that will protect us from being under suspicion, but will that be the same if and when another rushpublican comes to power? There needs to be a serious examination of where "national security" supersedes the 4th amendment and who is the one who decides.

A big problem is how "privacy" is defined. Should every bit of communications and business transactions be considered private or are once you leave your four walls that any and all movements and communications can be tracked, mined, bought and sold? I'm far more concerned with private entities that can and do use our personal information for their own profit and purposes. Try to fix a bad credit report and see how this kind of datamining is far more destructive than some spook trying to play word search with a Prism database...