UK government about to start monitoring personal data on social network sites

[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Really?

If the state only deals with security issues, he necessarily can only do so at the cost of freedoms. It is a side-effect you cannot avoid.

If the state only is about guaranteeing freedom, security will be compromised, agaion as an unavoidable side-effect.

It does not matter whether the state is the only actor, or shares responsibility for both factors with some other player.

You are too readily discounting the role of the individual in assuring his own freedoms and security. The state is required to provide some security, of course, but its' role should be as limited as possible to prevent the resultant damage of freedoms.

Originally Posted by skybird

And who should that other player be? Private business...? If so, then help us God (if that is not a hidden irony in there...) Private business minds it's own interests only, that's in it's very nature in a capitalistic order. where it should provide security, you have business lobbies formulating future laws and regulations. you have security companies, from parkdeck-guards to mercenary corporations. And where business is seen as a function to influence culture and shape of a society for more freedom (ignoring for a moment how that freedom from a business-oriented perpsdeltive gets defined: the trade with rare African ores in civil war regions, or blood diamonds, also is understood to be liberal trade), business will necessarily try to ease security barriers in order to get a greater liberalisation of the market (and eventually it nevertheless will demand protectionistic measures to shield itself from unwanted competition reducing it's profits).

So I cannot see in what way your remark is relevant.

You miss my point, entirely. I am not advocating the empowerment of private corporations to decide issues of security and freedom. I only support the freedom of such firms and the freedom of consumers to choose amongst them.
You too readily discount the fact that the state also minds its' own interests, entirely. You even mention how business uses the state, and yet you fail to see the harms of the state.

The powers of the state in any regulatory capacity must be very strictly limited, and must also be subject to public scrutiny. Where you see the state an opponent to private intersts, I see a dangerous corroberation.
The free market cannot be stopped. It will always exsist. Where the state interferes, it will seek advantage. Where the state destroys it, it will simply resurface outside the authority of the state. When either of these things happen, the rest of us suffer, because we are denied a choice in the market.

Since the market cannot be regulated much without causing undue economic duress, the state must be regulated . It must be prevented from interfering with and cooperating with the market.

The goal should be the preservation of individual freedoms. True, some people make the wrong decisions and suffer, but it is only their own doing and it affects only them and those who choose to aid them. When the state chooses wrong, or worse, when business chooses wrong and the state is in its' employ, everyone suffers.

The one question that continually irks me is; who do you trust to decide these policies, if not the conflicting wills of billions of individuals? Which group amongst them should be given the power to govern? How will such a group prevent harms that are not inherent in the system, if not exacerbate them? It is one thing to have an intelligent outlook on things, it is quite another to devise a reliable sytem of realizing it.
History has proven time and again that the state is not the answer, so what is your answer?