1. They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security (B. Franklin)
Among the most known quotes of the representatives of the liberal wing, Franklin’s one plays important role, demonstrating the weight and outstanding value and significance of freedom, which could not be substituted, its functioning could not be ‘postponed’ and nothing is equal to it. It is stated that ‘the individual right to liberty allows each person a sphere of freedom – a moral space or territory – whereby self-directed activities can be exercised without being invaded by others’ (Rasmussen 2005)
But is it still the basic principle under the circumstances of threat, violence, and existence of danger to basic human values, when acts of terrorism have become the reality and the risk of occurrence of the war is thought to be also real?
Nowadays, the above-mentioned circumstances are explained as a basis for surveillance programs, limitation of rights to freedom of speech and assembly, even invasion into the sovereign states. American writer H.L. Mencken said that ‘the average man does not want to be free, in contrast, he simply wants to be safe’. We could not disagree with him, additionally, we can claim that freedom is not what the politicians emphasize on during their campaigns, in contrast, safety and security are what people appreciate in their speeches.
A. P. Napoletano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, commented the correlation between liberty and freedom in such way: ‘It cannot be balance, because liberty and safety are not equals, as one created the other. It can be only bias — a continual predisposition toward and preference for freedom’ (Napoletano 2013).
The example of nowadays substitution of freedom with the necessity to provide safety for the society is Snowden’s discovery of the Government’s violation of the Fourth Amendment due ‘to their spying on all Americans who use telephones, text messaging or emails to communicate with other people’(Napoletano 2013).
2. Security vs. Surveillance
This topic, the author of which is Bruce Schneier, highlights the issue of the contemporary reality, in which we cannot talk about the absolute freedom, but only about the concrete stages how to secure yourself from the external interference. The main point of this essay is to improve the methods of database security, particularly by cryptography, which has been already used by many companies.
The examples of the need for such steps (when they have not been made) are following: ‘In 2014 and 2015, unnamed hackers—probably the Chinese government—stole 21.5 million personal files of U.S. government employees and others (Schneier 2016). The same situation, even though security steps were implemented, happened to Google, the database of which was breached in 2009 (Schneier 2016).
The demonstration of the application of security mechanism is given in A. Kahate’s book on cryptography and network security, in which it is said that nowadays network security mechanism are: ‘providing each user with user id and password, and usage of this information to authenticate a user; encoding of the information stored in databases in some fashion, so that it is not visible to users who do not have the right permissions’(Kahate 2003)
The principle of confidentially, applied in order to protect different categories of people, in particularly employees, decedents and political activists in certain countries and other categories of people, is still in need of perfection of the methods, used in order to make it work. Schneier concludes that nowadays ‘we are not being asked to choose between security and privacy. We're being asked to choose between less security and more security’ (Schneier 2016).
3. Corporate statement
Having become aware of the surveillance issues that our customers are concerned of, we are making this statement as a response towards them.
The possibility for the law enforcement bodies to extract our information is based on ‘No privacy in public’ argument. It means that it is taken from our cameras as well as from the contracts, which we have settled.
Our corporation collects data, when you sign public agreements with us. The appropriate provision is foreseen on the first page of the agreement with notion that we can provide the governmental bodies with this information. Thus, you per se agree upon these rules. Camera storage data are also open, according to the law.
The reasons for cooperation are following: it can help to both prevent the crime and improve its investigation. Such way of data collection has already proven its effectiveness, when bank robbers, murderers, thieves and others have been caught thanks to the fixation of their personalities via cameras. Data collection from the agreements has also helped for several times to identify, in particular, e-commerce criminals.
Hence, we support the governmental surveillance programs, which are aimed at the protection of each American citizen, in particular, you, respected and dear clients.
References
Solove, D.J. (2011) Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff between Privacy and Security Yale University Press.
Kahate, A. (2003) Cryptography and Network Security New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Ltd.
Rasmussen, D.B. (2005) Norms of Liberty: a Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics Pennsylvania State University Press.
Napolitano, A.P. (2013, July 25). Liberty vs. safety: No government is legitimate without consent The Washington Times, Retrieved from:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/25/liberty-vs-safety/?page=all
Schneier, B. (2016, February 1) Security vs. Surveillance Don't Panic: Making Progress on the 'Going Dark' Debate Retrieved from:
https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2016/02/security_vs_surveill.html
