If you ever hear someone say that the security services should have more powers to protect its citizens, then I would hope you brush up on this defence of our liberties. Below is a review of Grayling's book on liberty:
The Economist 20-06-2009 “Paying the price” p91-2 Review of ‘Liberty in the Age of Terror: A defence of civil society and enlightenment values’ by A C Grayling
“He describes the if-you-have-nothing-to-hide argument as ‘one of the most seductive betrayals of liberty’ imaginable. The assumption being it is, he says, ‘that the authorities will always be benign; will always reliably identify and interfere with genuinely bad people only; will never find themselves engaging in ‘mission creep’, with more and more uses to their new powers and capabilities to; will not redefine crimes, nor redefine various behaviours or views now regarded as acceptable, to extend the range of things for which people can be placed under suspicion – and so considerably on.’”
“But as freedom without some risk is impossible, it is obvious that people cannot expect politicians to put protecting them from every conceivable danger (something they are anyway powerless to do) before all other duties to society.”
“As Benjamin Franklin observed: ‘They that can give up essential to liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.’”
“The most important freedom is the freedom of speech: it is the freedom that supports all other freedoms.”
I believe in a strong defence for the UK, but A C Grayling is right. There is little point in having a defence if it ends up destroying the very thing we want to defend. The 'nothing to hide ' argument is spurious in that most people subscribing to it do so because they see the benefits but none of its costs, (it is not them that will come under suspicion after all), it is also a poor idea to entirely trust the suspicions of the security services even if the only people suspected and then detained are wearing religious clothing or the kind of sporting apparel common to those that are the subjects of certain confrontational day time TV shows; for such suspicions are based on prejudice rather than evidence, and as we all know, prejudice restricts the mind rather than expands it, and is as unlikely to protect us as it is to find a writer that can get all this down in one sentence.
The Economist 20-06-2009 “Paying the price” p91-2 Review of ‘Liberty in the Age of Terror: A defence of civil society and enlightenment values’ by A C Grayling
“He describes the if-you-have-nothing-to-hide argument as ‘one of the most seductive betrayals of liberty’ imaginable. The assumption being it is, he says, ‘that the authorities will always be benign; will always reliably identify and interfere with genuinely bad people only; will never find themselves engaging in ‘mission creep’, with more and more uses to their new powers and capabilities to; will not redefine crimes, nor redefine various behaviours or views now regarded as acceptable, to extend the range of things for which people can be placed under suspicion – and so considerably on.’”
“But as freedom without some risk is impossible, it is obvious that people cannot expect politicians to put protecting them from every conceivable danger (something they are anyway powerless to do) before all other duties to society.”
“As Benjamin Franklin observed: ‘They that can give up essential to liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.’”
“The most important freedom is the freedom of speech: it is the freedom that supports all other freedoms.”
I believe in a strong defence for the UK, but A C Grayling is right. There is little point in having a defence if it ends up destroying the very thing we want to defend. The 'nothing to hide ' argument is spurious in that most people subscribing to it do so because they see the benefits but none of its costs, (it is not them that will come under suspicion after all), it is also a poor idea to entirely trust the suspicions of the security services even if the only people suspected and then detained are wearing religious clothing or the kind of sporting apparel common to those that are the subjects of certain confrontational day time TV shows; for such suspicions are based on prejudice rather than evidence, and as we all know, prejudice restricts the mind rather than expands it, and is as unlikely to protect us as it is to find a writer that can get all this down in one sentence.
If that doesn't convince you then hopefully AC Grayling can. You have been warned.
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