Although privacy is a right in a democratic society, it is certainly not an absolute right. Some might consider DNA profiling of the whole country as the first step towards a totalitarian state, but just perhaps, this concept, along with the Search and Surveillance Bill passing the final hurdle, could be the first steps towards a state that will not tolerate crime -a state that will do everything possible to protect the innocent.
So says Steve Baron writing in today's NZ Herald.
A "state that will not tolerate crime."
The same state that defines the crime.
Some people are just so ready to relinquish freedom.
2 comments:
You've cottoned onto the fact, Lindsay, in at least two posts now, that privacy (from the State) is a litmus test of freedom. No privacy, no freedom. It's one of the main topics I write about now on SOLO.
I would define the police state as simply one in which the individual has no privacy from the State, and even when you know the powers the IRD have, you realise we are the police state already. And it happened because the tyranny of the majority said, 'but if you have done nothing wrong, what's the problem ...'
In that sentence, borne by lack of philosophical thinking about the nature of freedom, and how the State is the biggest threat to that, was our downfall. It is completely beyond the minds of our politicians, to understand any of these concepts either.
The West is moving inexorably from the optimism and the 'freedom' of 1776 back in time to 1984.
Freedom lost ...
Well said Lindsay, and Mark you're dead right. Enjoyment of privacy is indeed a hallmark of individual freedom. One just needs to think of the telescreens in Orwell's novel...
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