Excellent Ask Me Anything today on Reddit. The whole thing is worth
reading.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2wwdep/we_are_edward_snowden_laura_poitras_and_glenn?curator=MediaREDEF
But I wanted to point this exchange out, as I thought Snowden gave an
incredibly insightful answer.
He was asked this: “What's the best way to make NSA spying an issue in
the 2016 Presidential Election? It seems like while it was a big deal in
2013, ISIS and other events have put it on the back burner for now in
the media and general public. What are your ideas for how to bring it
back to the forefront?”
Here is Snowden’s answer:
This is a good question, and there are some good traditional answers
here. Organizing is important. Activism is important.
At the same time, we should remember that governments don't often
reform themselves. One of the arguments in a book I read recently
(Bruce Schneier, "Data and Goliath"), is that perfect enforcement of
the law sounds like a good thing, but that may not always be the case.
The end of crime sounds pretty compelling, right, so how can that be?
Well, when we look back on history, the progress of Western
civilization and human rights is actually founded on the violation of
law. America was of course born out of a violent revolution that was
an outrageous treason against the crown and established order of the
day. History shows that the righting of historical wrongs is often
born from acts of unrepentant criminality. Slavery. The protection of
persecuted Jews.
But even on less extremist topics, we can find similar examples. How
about the prohibition of alcohol? Gay marriage? Marijuana?
Where would we be today if the government, enjoying powers of perfect
surveillance and enforcement, had -- entirely within the law --
rounded up, imprisoned, and shamed all of these lawbreakers?
Ultimately, if people lose their willingness to recognize that there
are times in our history when legality becomes distinct from morality,
we aren't just ceding control of our rights to government, but our
agency in determing thour futures.
How does this relate to politics? Well, I suspect that governments
today are more concerned with the loss of their ability to control and
regulate the behavior of their citizens than they are with their
citizens' discontent.
How do we make that work for us? We can devise means, through the
application and sophistication of science, to remind governments that
if they will not be responsible stewards of our rights, we the people
will implement systems that provide for a means of not just enforcing
our rights, but removing from governments the ability to interfere
with those rights.
You can see the beginnings of this dynamic today in the statements of
government officials complaining about the adoption of encryption by
major technology providers. The idea here isn't to fling ourselves
into anarchy and do away with government, but to remind the government
that there must always be a balance of power between the governing and
the governed, and that as the progress of science increasingly
empowers communities and individuals, there will be more and more
areas of our lives where -- if government insists on behaving poorly
and with a callous disregard for the citizen -- we can find ways to
reduce or remove their powers on a new -- and permanent -- basis.
Our rights are not granted by governments. They are inherent to our
nature. But it's entirely the opposite for governments: their
privileges are precisely equal to only those which we suffer them to
enjoy.
We haven't had to think about that much in the last few decades
because quality of life has been increasing across almost all measures
in a significant way, and that has led to a comfortable complacency.
But here and there throughout history, we'll occasionally come across
these periods where governments think more about what they "can" do
rather than what they "should" do, and what is lawful will become
increasingly distinct from what is moral.
In such times, we'd do well to remember that at the end of the day,
the law doesn't defend us; we defend the law. And when it becomes
contrary to our morals, we have both the right and the responsibility
to rebalance it toward just ends.
As I said, go read the whole thing, if you can.
Scott
--
R. Scott Granneman
sc...@granneman.com ~ www.granneman.com
Contact info: granneman.tel
“Absolute obedience to law may bring order temporarily, but it may not
bring justice.”
---Howard Zinn, Declarations of Independence
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