Comments on: Recommended reading: Quis custodiet custodes ipsos? http://www.randomfate.net/MT/2006/05/20/recommended-reading-quis-custodiet-custodes-ipsos/ One more roll of the dice... Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:53:43 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: Daniel Berczik http://www.randomfate.net/MT/2006/05/20/recommended-reading-quis-custodiet-custodes-ipsos/comment-page-1/#comment-63687 Daniel Berczik Sun, 21 May 2006 14:10:26 +0000 http://www.randomfate.net/MT/2006/05/20/recommended-reading-quis-custodiet-custodes-ipsos/#comment-63687 A problem with the idea that only those "doing wrong" need be concerned is that we have granted authority to the government to decide what is wrong and what is not. I'm all for listening in on terrorist conversations, but by this time, isn't it just a tiny possibility that the terrorists have already moved on? So we are left with eating ourselves. All around London, there are thousands of cameras recording constantly. Two thoughts come to mind: (1) All that video didn't stop July 7, so what are they for? And how many people are needed to watch all this? (2) This calls to the fore the possibilty of inadvertant entrapment. In other words, evidence gathering to foil terror plots can now be used to find all sorts of things people do "wrong." It sounds Orwellian, but there is no reason to trust government. The only speck of hope is in knowing how incompetent our spies are, but sooneror later, I'm willing to bet that one day, some poor schmuck who just had his subway token swallowed by a turnstile and decides to jump to get to a train will be nabbed and become public enemy #1. A problem with the idea that only those “doing wrong” need be concerned is that we have granted authority to the government to decide what is wrong and what is not.

I’m all for listening in on terrorist conversations, but by this time, isn’t it just a tiny possibility that the terrorists have already moved on? So we are left with eating ourselves.

All around London, there are thousands of cameras recording constantly. Two thoughts come to mind:

(1) All that video didn’t stop July 7, so what are they for? And how many people are needed to watch all this?

(2) This calls to the fore the possibilty of inadvertant entrapment. In other words, evidence gathering to foil terror plots can now be used to find all sorts of things people do “wrong.”

It sounds Orwellian, but there is no reason to trust government. The only speck of hope is in knowing how incompetent our spies are, but sooneror later, I’m willing to bet that one day, some poor schmuck who just had his subway token swallowed by a turnstile and decides to jump to get to a train will be nabbed and become public enemy #1.

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