Overall, the problem for these thinkers is that an expanse of security related legislation, along with an unclear definition of, for example, terrorism or subversion, may leave too much to the discretion of the security agencies and other law enforcers. It may be claimed that where the security agency remit is too broad, there exists the potential for abuse, either by parliamentarians seeking to apply pressure to the security agencies or by the security agencies themselves. They argue that as legal definitions of the types of activity, which may prompt a covert investigation, become wider, the range of targets may tend to grow correspondingly. It is fair to say that such claims may not be without foundation. There have been occasions where surveillance measures may have been introduced with seemingly little consideration of any safeguard to prevent their misuse. For Example, in April 2011, Liberty drew attention to a scheme which involved the installation of hundreds of cameras (overt and covert) in two areas of Birmingham. It was claimed that this project was falsely sold to the local Muslim community as a general crime prevention scheme, when in reality, it was purely a counter-terrorism measure targeted because of a high proportion of Muslim residents. Indeed, following Liberty’s intervention, a review of the scheme was established and a report, authored by the Chief Constable of Thames Valley, Sarah Thornton, acknowledged that the scheme has dramatically undermined confidence in police legitimacy.
Since it is claimed that the current legislative programme for preventing terrorism and violence does not always provide adequate safeguards against government abuses of power, civil libertarians may call for an increased reso...
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...tate of perfect freedom, to order their actions and dispose of their possessions, as they see fit.’ Liberals have traditionally emphasised that human beings are essentially self-interested and largely self-sufficient and, therefore, as far as possible, should be responsible for their own lives and circumstances. Rights such as freedom of speech, religious worship and assembly, constitute a ‘private sphere’ which should be untouched, particularly by government. Thus, actions, such as covert surveillance operated by the security agencies, which may impinge of this ‘private sphere’, may be viewed with suspicion by some liberals. Rather, in order to prevent unnecessary interference, the liberal doctrine tends to favour a system of minimal intervention into the lives and choices of individuals and one in which liberty is understood in terms of negative freedoms.
Liberal freedom is the absence of subjective legal or institutional restraints on the individual, containing the idea that all citizens are to be treated equally. Freedom as self-government involves an assumed individual state of independence, self-determination, superiority, and self-confidence. Participatory freedom includes the right to the individual to partake fully in the political process. Collective deliverance is agreed as the liberation of a group from outside control-from imprisonment, bondage, or domination. (Walton Jr & Smith,
Cole, D., & Dempsey, J. X. (2006). Terrorism and the constitution: sacrificing civil liberties in the name of national security. New York: New Press.
Our nation seems as if it is in a constant battle between freedom and safety. Freedom and security are two integral parts that keep our nation running smoothly, yet they are often seen conflicting with one another. “Tragedies such as Pearl Harbor, 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombings may invoke feelings of patriotism and a call for unity, but the nation also becomes divided, and vulnerable populations become targets,” (Wootton 1). “After each attack a different group or population would become targets. “The attack on Pearl Harbor notoriously lead to Japanese Americans being imprisoned in internment camps, the attacks on 9/11 sparked hate crimes against those who appeared to be Muslim or Middle Eastern,” (Wootton 1). Often times people wind up taking sides, whether it be for personal freedoms or for national security, and as a nation trying to recover from these disasters we should be leaning on each other for support. Due to these past events the government has launched a series of antiterrorist measures – from ethnic profiling to going through your personal e-mail (Begley 1). Although there are times when personal freedoms are sacrificed for the safety of others, under certain circumstances the government could be doing more harm than good.
“With surveillance technology like closed-circuit television cameras and digital cameras now linked to the Internet, we now have the means to implement Bentham's inspection principle on a much vaster scale”(Singer) Bentham's inspection principle is a system that allows the collection, storing and dissemination of data on individuals, corporations, and the government. This collection of data has large implications in regard to privacy and security. “There is always danger that the information collected will be misused - whether by regimes seeking to silence opposition or by corporations seeking to profit from more detailed knowledge of their potential customers.”(Singer) What is done with the information collected is the main issue in terms of privacy. We do not want to be marketed to, or inundated with spam from third-party sources. We also do not want our private social circles and experiences to appear that they are being monetized or subjected to surveillance outside our control. In addition, surveillance has a large effect on the government that can beneficial or detrimental to democracy. Exposure of government secrets may make officials tread carefully when making decisions, ensuring that politicians are nothing but just and fair.“The crucial step in preventing a repressive government from
Spalek and Imtoual (2007) state that in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 and the following of subsequent terrorist attacks in the UK and Europe, there has been a shift of focus on black minorities to Asian minorities and as a result there has been an increased surveillance amongst Asian and Muslim minority groups. Since the year 2000, numerous contemporary anti-terror laws have been instated the law affecting minority groups the most being most influential the Terrorism Act 2000. The Terrorism Act 2000 affected minority groups by enhancing police powers to investigate terrorism, including wider stop and search powers, and the power to detain suspects after arrest for up to 14 days. (Spalek and Imtoual, 2007). As a result, statistics in Britain in 2002-2003, sugested that under counter-terrorism legislation, stop and searches carried out amongst Asian minorities increased by 302% in a year, in which Hare and Weinstein (2010, p.483) in their literary research on democracy, state that the Muslim Council of Britain claimed that the police are misusing their new enhanced powers and
Somewhere near the heart of much contemporary liberal political theory is the claim that if the state restricts an agent's liberty, its restrictions should have some rationale that is defensible to each of those whose liberty is constrained. Liberals are committed to the "requirement that all aspects of the social order should either be made acceptable or be capable of being made acceptable to every last individual." But there are many kinds of claim which are particularly controversial, many about which we expect reasonable disagreement. Coercive policies should not be justified on the basis of such controversial grounds; rather, they should enjoy public justification. That coercive policy should enjoy public justification implies that political actors are subject to various principles of restraint, that is, that they should restrain themselves from supporting policies solely on the basis of excessively controversial grounds. The point of advocating restraint is to achieve a minimal moral conception, a core morality, which is rationally acceptable to all and which provides the ground rules for political association.
Andrew Guthrie Ferguson thinks that people should be able to choose what areas they want to be secure from “physical and sense-enhancing invasion.” Another scholar, Joel Reidenbuerg, believes that current views of privacy do not fit well with the current technology, instead surveillance is dependent on “the nature of the acts being surveilled.” One more scholar, Chris Slobogin, believes that “the justification for a search should be roughly proportional to the intrusiveness of the search” (Hartzog, 2015). Point is, legal issues surrounding government surveillance is a complex topic without a perfect all-encompassing solution; each situation is different and should be treated
For centuries philosophers have debated over the presence of free will. As a result of these often-heated arguments, many factions have evolved, the two most prominent being the schools of Libertarianism and of Determinism. Within these two schools of thought lies another debate, that of compatibilism, or whether or not the two believes can co-exist. In his essay, Has the Self “Free Will”?, C.A. Campbell, a staunch non-compatiblist and libertarian, attempts to explain the Libertarian argument.
...on Terrorism Has Not Eroded Civil Liberties." Civil Liberties: Opposing Viewpoints. Ed. Auriana Ojeda. New York: Greenhaven Press, 2004.
The breath-taking expansion of police power that the United States government took after 9/11 now poses as a troubling issue. Americans need to address the issues of government surveillance because it affects t...
...f surveillance might serve to have real impact on people’s life chances owing to such institutionalized prejudice. For example, a recent study found that CCTV operators were disproportionately monitoring the young, the male and ethnic minorities “for no obvious reason” (Norris & Armstrong 1999). That is, in the absence of suspicious behavior they were choosing to focus their attention on these categories of people. The result is that anyone falling into these categories is more likely to be caught if doing something wrong than someone else, thus perpetuating the stereotype. Furthermore, as these groups were being watched more frequently than others, they were more likely to be seen as doing something suspicious. This in turn could lead to disproportionate response rates by security forces on the ground, contributing to a sense of alienation and rejection by society.
Nonetheless, negative freedom does not mean that individuals should have absolute and unrestricted freedom. Classical liberals, such as J.S. Mill, believe that if freedom is unlimited it can lead to “license”, namely the right to harm others or to infringe their “natural” rights to “life, liberty and property”. In this way, Classical Liberals often support minimal restrictions on the individual so as to prevent individuals from inflicting harm upon each other. However, it should be borne in mind that Classical Liberals do not accept any constraints upon the individual that prevent him from damaging himself, physically or mentally, since the individual still remains sovereign. Such a view of freedom means that classical liberals generally advocate the establishment of a minimal or “nightwatch” state, whose role is limited to the protection of individuals from other individuals.
In the modern day era, we find in society a ubiquitous usage of technology that seems to be never ending and forever growing. Included with this notion, the broad subject of surveillance is of course included. Contemporary surveillance, or more specifically technological surveillance, has been described as ambiguous; meaning that it is often misunderstood or open to different interpretations. The representation of surveillance within popular culture has played an impacting role on how we as a society perceive it and this raises certain questions that may reflect back on to society. The 1998 film Enemy Of The State directed by Tony Scott, Starring Will Smith, Gene Hackman and Jon Voight is considered to be a ‘spy-thriller’ blockbuster. Its central themes explore a range of surveillance techniques and equipment and also provides some insights, no matter how realistic or unrealistic they may be, into the real life security organisation; The National Security Agency (NSA). Using this film as an example and analysing how these themes are represented will hopefully allow us to key these ideas back to modern surveillance theories and practices.
Modern day society is engrossed in a battle for protection of individual rights and freedoms from infringement by any person, be it the government or fellow citizens. Liberalism offers a solution to this by advocating for the protection of personal freedom. As a concept and ideology in political science, liberalism is a doctrine that defines the motivation and efforts made towards the protection of the aforementioned individual freedom. In the current society, the greatest feature of liberalism is the protection of individual liberty from intrusion or violation by a government. The activities of the government have, therefore, become the core point of focus. In liberalism, advocacy for personal freedom may translate to three ideal situations, based on the role that a government plays in a person’s life. These are no role, a limited role or a relatively large role. The three make up liberalism’s rule of thumb. (Van de Haar 1). Political theorists have
The past decade has seen a proliferation of law enforcement security cameras in public areas, with central London having more cameras than any other city. In cities like New York, Los Angeles, and central London, cameras can be found at almost every intersection. Terrorist attacks have been a major basis for this significant increase in law enforcement security cameras; however, privacy advocates, along with many of the public, feel that it’s an invasion of privacy. People are concerned that all this video surveillance, which is continuously expanding, has created a “Big Brother” society, where people are constantly watched. This creates paranoia and unease for people that just want to go about living there private lives, without feeling that their every move is being watched. The increased presence of surveillance cameras is almost compared to George Orwell’s novel from 1984, where he imagined a future in which people would be monitored and controlled by the government. One question that needs to be asked is: does the benefits of law enforcement security cameras outweigh the negative sides to it? Although the invasion of privacy is a serious argument against law enforcement cameras; nevertheless, it should be seen as a valuable tool to help fight crime. As long as surveillance cameras are in public places and not in people's homes, privacy advocates should not be concerned.