The Security State

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Original Poster: National Archives
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Warrantless Surveillance, Government Eavesdropping, and the Security State
posted by Austin Cline on Jesus' General

All attempts to defend or justify government monitoring of our communications without warrants or any other serious judicial oversight ultimately depend upon one important premise: the inherent goodness of those doing the monitoring. We are supposed to trust those given the authority to run such operations to only do so in the interests of the nation, to act only when appropriate, to never abuse their power, and to never injure the rights or privileges of the people. It's depressing that conservatives are making these arguments because this premise is contrary to the very basis of conservative political philosophy. Conservatism differs from nation to nation and culture to culture — they all have different traditions, social structures, and so forth which some wish to conserve. One thing which is common to political conservatism in the West, though, is distrust of concentrated power and authority. To put it simplistically, one of the premises political conservatism starts from is that people are basically bad and/or selfish and shouldn't be trusted too far. Often this entails erecting and maintaining strong institutions with sufficient power and authority to force people to adhere to strict standards. The further along this line of thinking a person happily goes, the more authoritarian they are. (read the entire article)

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