Thomas Hobbes introduced the social contract philosophy: Inhabiting a civil society obliges rules that naturally relinquish some freedoms. Rules are mandatory for one to inhabit oneself in a civil society, at the cost of sacrifices. However, it calls for scarifies to be made, naturally.
Inherent to a free and democratic society, the cherished privacy legislation endows the individual with certain rights and responsibilities, and establishes rules and guidelines for the ways in which public and private sector organizations are permitted to interact. Applicable to this case in how they are allowed to deal with the personal information collected on individuals and groups within the society so as to not compromise their protections from the “prying eyes of government.”
Endemic to all privacy laws are a set of reasonable information practices that set the boundaries for protection of the individual while also allowing a certain latitude for organizations to use personal information when necessary and allocated by law. Scholars argue that privacy is a core value in liberal, democratic societies and that privacy is deemed as a fundamental human right.
Likewise, the terrorism threat called for enhanced security protections called for fundamental rights and freedoms to be basically be revamped to better improve public safety and to combat terrorism. The question is how much security is needed, and to what extent are we willing to allow some slippage of our privacy rights? The tension between the duty of government to protect citizens from external threats and the human right to privacy threatens to encroach on political traditions and constitution guarantees.
To ensure some personal security, Thomas Hobbes argued the exchange of promises that entails citizens to cede some their liberties and freedoms in exchange for their protection and security by a political authority, where breach of contract by either party would render it void. This social contract is based on Human State of Nature—how we naturally are, not how we ought to be—=making it necessary to stifle such tendency by means of enforced rules.
This logic can be applied here with respect to the anti-terrorism act.
The right to privacy is predicated on trust and confidence between the citizenry and government. The particular security measure that Riley discusses is related to the surveillance venue—data collection to identify terrorists or potential terrorists.
The fundamental issue in the arena of privacy pertains to the way that personal information “is collected, distributed, shared, and used by public and private institutes alike.” Scholars argue that privacy is a core value in liberal, democratic societies; and that privacy is deemed as a fundamental inherent human right.
But, it is not only the legalities that are troublesome, it is also the way information is gathered; and, the way technologies have advanced to transcend distance, time and space. Changes from data entry to automatic-collection perpetuates to a habitual exercise of compiling information. Databases can be stored, retrieved, combined and used under different contexts where it never meant anything before, along with their portable, immense storage capabilities. It is evident that such innovations have engulfed within them, the potential for the erosion of privacy to a degree previously could not have envisaged (during the formative stages of its development).
Data is collected for future use, so actions are liable to be reinterpreted differently. The reinterpretation of particular actions and behaviors as wrongful are groundless decisions to identify who to watch. In addition, the pre-emptive approach enables governments around the world to oversee people in number of ways at their own discretion. The surveillance of suspects has morphed to the surveillance of all. It begs to wonder, If it is not about the legal elements, then it is not about you, and certainly not about your safety and security.
LEGAL DIMENSION:
The Anti-Terrorism Act is legitimized under the umbrella of national security. The side effect is that it frustrates the fundamental human rights to the extent that civil liberty infringements suddenly seem miniscule in comparison to the necessity to invoke the government’s duty to protect their citizens in the ‘war on terrorism’ threat.
Despite the possible inducements that the United States may allude to, it remains unclear whether this actually comes to fruition. It is more of a symbolic recognition. Also, though the UN CTC advocates and supports this bill, the most profound influence comes from the US.
Regarding: Tension between Democracy versus Security versus Freedom
Whitaker’s article went into the ramifications of the United States government’s crusade to spread democracy around the world. The article was touched upon the rationale behind it being the lack of political freedom accentuates emergence of terrorist and extremists. The article could have delved into more details on the strategy condoning their campaign to spread democracy. For instance, it has been argued that promoting democracy on the part of the U.S. is a ‘soft’ instrument to ever so gently impose their influence—the power to shape new statesmen in the their own image.
Though not directly stated in the article: Therein lies the hypocrisy in the US’s encouragement for democracy, because they find, “it necessary to work closely in the struggle against terrorism with friendly authoritarian regimes…” (Whitaker, p.1017).
The attraction towards Authoritarian governments was their readily conformity to sanction the Anti-Terrorism bill. Never mind their own agenda to manipulate its application to their benefit. They exploited it as a tool for their own political gain. This finely crafted smoke screen is a departure from the democratic practices itself—empowering them to embody the very hallmarks of past authoritarian practices, proliferating the might of their reign. Still, security precautions trumped democratic practices while simultaneously trampling on fundamental human rights.
Nonetheless, newer democratic countries embraced their new found freedoms and protest against restrictions on their personal liberties. In fact, political activism directed towards the US for their national security measures began to grow as citizens learn about the ramifications of the Patriot Act comprising human rights and freedoms.
Though, “Anti-Terrorism legislation can actually foster civil society engagement and debate.” (Whitaker, p.1028), it runs the risk of back-firing against the US. Here, democracy prevails but at the cost of antagonizing against US promoted Anti-Terrorism Act, i.e. national security measures may be compromised in the interest of human rights. To complicate matters, internationally, nations and organizations historically have been unable to agree on a definition of terrorism, let alone the provisions it would entail, since one person’s terrorist is often another person’s freedom fighter. To circumvent this political constraint, countries have taken the approach of enacting laws or negotiating conventions, which criminalize specific acts such as kidnapping, donating bombs, or hijacking airplanes.
In the Canadian context, the Anti-Terrorism Act provoked heated debate and controversy, which ensued because the Liberal Government at the time fast-tracked it to its enactment. The anti-terrorism rules became law on December 19, 2001, in the chaotic aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the United States. The rules were known as the Anti-Terrorism Act. The Conservative government has tried to paint the Liberals as hypocritical and weak on terrorism for refusing to extend certain provisions tightening the strictness in the name of national security. The Conservatives accused the Liberals as soft on terrorism by their wishy-washy approach to a law that they had written themselves. The Liberals were staunch in their position that the curtailment of civil liberties should only be justified under emergency provisions, when public safety absolutely necessitates for it.
This exemplifies the potential for progress, as the need to engage in passionate debate to seek actions for change. Such dialogue exposes possible unintended detrimental effects of such a rash entrenched law. Most importantly, citizens must actively contest provisions that impugn on their liberty and security. It is imperative that a healthy tension is maintained between governments and the “official opposition,” that is, the public who are q willing to challenge and debate the issues. In this way, a balance between the need for strong but effective security laws will be counterbalance by equally strong privacy and freedom of information guarantees.
Bibliography
Alistair Millar and Eric Rosand. Allied Against Terrorism: What's Needed to Strengthen Worldwide Commitment (New York: The Century Foundation Press, 2006), pp. 67-87.
Whitaker, Beth Elise. "Exporting the Patriot Act? Democracy and the 'War on Terror' in the Third World," Third World Quarterly, vol.28, no. 5 (2007), pp. 1017-32.
The author draws on Hobbes’ contractual ethics to suggest that anti-terrorism legislations require “citizens to cede some of their liberties and freedoms in exchange for their protection and security by a political authority, where breach of contract by either party would render it void.” In describing anti-terrorism legislations in terms of a social contract, the author is not alone (see Meisels 2005). Through studying the role of information asymmetry, this response considers some pragmatic concerns that emerge from the “exchange of promises” involved in implementation of anti-terrorism legislations.
ReplyDeleteIn contract and agency theory, information asymmetry refers to a situation where one party in a contract knows something that the other party does not (Miller 1992: 28). This imbalance of information causes an imbalance of power that produces incentive for the better-informed party to engage in illegitimate behaviour.
The implementation of anti-terrorism legislations may produce information asymmetry. Whereas the state manages risk under significant uncertainty about terrorist activity (Lemyre et al 2006: 756), citizens remain similarly uncertain about the state’s implementation of anti-terrorism legislations. Public knowledge may be particularly lacking in respect to infringement on our right to privacy, since revealing surveillance procedures might compromise risk management efforts. The lack of public knowledge regarding privacy infringements has implications for our post-9/11 social contract.
The author of the main entry suggests that breach by either party renders a social contract void. In our liberal democracy, rendering such a contract void would likely involve legislative or judicial reform, and require proof of breach. With enhanced policing powers, it is easier than ever for the state to identify and address breaches on part of the citizens. Due to information asymmetry, it is more challenging for citizens to ascertain whether the state has broken its promise to minimally violate our right to privacy. Recent incidents of racial profiling would suggest that the promise to particular communities is broken more frequently than others, which could constitute an illegitimate use of political authority (See Cohen 2002).
To the extent that it highlights the importance of the right to privacy, the rhetoric of “promises” used to advance anti-terrorism legislations has symbolic value. However, the implementation of such legislations produces information asymmetry that may make it easier for the state to break its promise, and more difficult for citizens to find out. This raises the question: Have we entered a contract to which there is no real exit clause? In light of concerns about restrictions on liberty becoming habitual (Cohen 2002:12), it is a question that merits further attention.
References
Stanley A. Cohen, “Liberty and Security—Can we have both?” prepared for the conference of the International Society for the Reform of the Criminal Law, Charleston, South California, December 10, 2002.
Louise Lemyre, Michelle C. Turner, Jennifer E. C. Lee, and Daniel Krewski, “Public Perception of Terrorism Threats and Related Information Sources in Canada: Implications for the Management of Terrorism Risks,” Journal of Risk Research, vol.9, no. 7 (2006), pp. 755-74.
Tamar Meisels, “How Terrorism Upsets Liberty,” in Political Studies, vol. 53 (2005), pp. 162-181.
Gary J. Millar, “Market Failures and Hierarchical Solutions: The Tension between Individual and Collective Rationality,” in Managerial Dilemmas (2002), pp. 19-35.