The Debates Continue: Security, Privacy, and Federal Electronic Surveillance
This blog on the economics of federal electronic surveillance policy was launched in July, 2014 for the Stoa league debate topic:
Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially reform its electronic surveillance law.
This year the National Speech and Debate Association has selected a similar policy resolution for their 2015-16 school year:
Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially curtail its domestic surveillance.
And now we have the NCFCA Lincoln-Douglas (value) topic (subject to rewording):
Resolved: When in conflict, the right to individual privacy is more important than national security.
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Big Brother and Federal Electronic Surveillance Policy
The first post on this topic linked to a February, 2104 Independent Institute post, Stop the Surveillance State.
The author, Anthony Gregory also has a short video emphasizing the Fourth Amendment, and recorded in 2014 after the Edward Snowden revelations of broad federal electronic surveillance that even most in Congress were not aware of.
Gregory notes the scope of federal electronic surveillance:
The surveillance state has become totally integrated, as government at all levels—from federal regulatory agencies down to local law enforcement, and working with politically favored corporations—are coordinated in a wholesale attack on what is left of American privacy. Spy cameras on city streets, face-recognition software, Post Office tracking, government-mandated chips in our electronics, the government takeover of our cellphone microphones and laptop webcams—all of it points to an Orwellian future.
Local police departments and public schools have contributed to the erosion of our privacy. The NSA has spied shamelessly on foreign heads of state. The trajectory is most frightening—U.S. government spying and data collection directed at the entire world. We are on the cusp of arriving at the totalitarian dream of “total information awareness.”
Link to video (image above) on electronic surveillance and Fourth Amendment.
More on Anthony Gregory from Independent Institute web page:
Research Fellow Anthony Gregory, author of The Power of Habeas Corpus in America wants a new national dedication to the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, protecting Americans’ rights against unreasonable searches and seizures. Gregory says we are on the cusp of having no privacy at all, living in a society even more intrusive than George Orwell’s 1984.
