When we talk about the battle between security and privacy, most of the discussion from both sides has to do with one of two topics: the effectiveness of electronic mass surveillance in deterring and stopping crime, or the effect that surveillance has on individual freedoms e.g. freedom of speech/expression. These are the most important questions in the debate, since we all agree that both individual freedom and safety are important, but the debate surrounds the way we prioritize those values and the effects that we perceive surveillance having on them. As a debater on either side of the topic, it is often tempting (and quite easy) to exaggerate the importance of either privacy or security, for example by claiming that by letting the government monitor our phone calls, we are condemning ourselves to an Orwellian future. Obviously, it is possible to live in a free and healthy democratic society where the government has access to its citizens phone calls. So instead of making that extreme claim, it might be more appropriate to simply note that we need to be deliberate and thoughtful about what freedoms we give up, and a similar approach applies to the safety side of the debate.
In addition to these value-driven issues, there is an important practical side to the debate that goes along with the above idea to be judicious in how we relinquish our freedoms, even when the end result is justified. It is important to keep in mind that any powers we grant to the government now are effectively permanent; they set a precedent for future regimes to do the same. So if we are going to give up a freedom in today’s society, we should also be willing to give that up in a hypothetical society where our ruler is the kind of tyrant we fear the most. Obviously, our constitution is designed specifically to prevent such a government from coming to power, but recognizing the longstanding effects of our choices today is vital since we can’t afford to get the answers to these questions wrong.
