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Rex Latchford's blog on the topic of "America Post 9/11"
Welcome! My schedule is chaotic and hectic at times, so I can't promise how often I'll be able to post my writing here, however, I can say that this is a topic that is of great interest to me. Like many other Americans, I am concerned how the events of 9/11/2001 accelerated changes to our country that have diminished and threatened individual rights, civil rights, privacy rights, and constitutional law. This is the topic of these pages where I will share my concerns and the developments of the day that impact these concerns.
Article Index
- America Post 9/11
- Freedom
- Privacy
- Technology
America Post 9/11
"Homeland security, in other words, faced a fundamental dilemma. Completely protecting the country from another terrorist attack would require security measures that were so vast and so expensive that thay would destroy the very things they were designed to protect. Lives would be saved but at huge costs to liverty and the pursuit of happiness. President Dwight Eisenhower had faced a siimilar dilemma after the Soviet Union's explosion of a hydrogen bomb in 1953 forced the country to face the possibility of a devastating nuclear attack. Eisenhower's advisers had urged him to issue a national call to arms, and to begin construction of a massive network of blast and fallout shelters to prepare the country to survive a nuclear war. But Eisenhower rejected that recommentation, believing that putting the United States on such a permanent war footing would destroy the economy and imperil American democracy." -- pp.123 "The Closing of the American Border - Terrorism, Immigration, and Security since 9/11" by Edward Alden 2008, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY
Here are some links of interest:
Prison Nation The New York TimesMarch 10, 2008 Are prison's America's only growth industry?
Freedom
Recent events with respect to WikiLeaks have drawn attention in the International Debate to freedom of the press, now recognized nearly universally as a right. However, sometimes an assumption is made in grouping freedom of the press with freedom of speech in general. In the case of WikiLeaks, the U.S. Government has pondered prosecuting WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange (freedom of speech) while simultaneously considering not to prosecute the NY Times, Guardian, et. al. (freedom of the press).
Privacy
What privacy? It is hotly debated wether the Constitution grants Americans any privacy at all. In the meantime, the United Nation's "Declaration of Universal Human Rights" guarantees basic privacy to all citizens of the world. Psychologists tell us that privacy is necessary to all adults, and to a lesser extent children, in order to maintain a healthy psyche, personality, and individual identity. Ironically, these last items at times seem the target of systematic extermination either by the government, judicial system, police, legislation, society at large, or culture.
Technology
Just one of the technology issues exacerbated by the 9/11 attack is the use of cameras, both in public places under various jurisdictions, and in private places, also under the aegis of a wide variety of operators. There is very little law or policy regarding the use of these cameras and how they should be operated. There is even less consistency in how they are deployed, and little if any coordination of their use.
In his book "The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?", author David Brin examines the case of widely deployed surveillance cameras. He concludes at the start that the cat is out of the bag, and that there is no point in debating the control of the spread of these devices. Brin argues that widespread deployment is a foregone conclusion, and that the focus should be on the question of "who watches the watchers". He therefore believes that technology has robbed us of a large part of our privacy which can not be recovered. The question is, he contends, how will we deal with this loss of privacy going forward. Brin urges us to look at the problem as a question of openness. Here, Brin is on the same page as WikiLeaks' Julian Assange, in believing the secrecy leads to badness in all places. Where I question this line of thinking is when secrecy and privacy become confused or thought of as interchangeable. My education in human psychology, both cognitive and developmental, tells me that we must treat privacy and secrecy separately and recognize them both as basic human needs.
Text Generation Gap: U R 2 Old (JK) The New York TimesMarch 10, 2008 Texting is the (s)hit, duh-uh!
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