Those who hate the state love leaks of the sort The Guardian has been publishing. They justify their 'Big Brother' view of all that is supposedly bad about government.
I don't agree. As a liberal, rather than a libertarian, I am no lover of snooping. And I condemn it, especially if done beyond the law. But I hold the state in high regard. The state and the funds it can marshal is the only efficient way we know to provide high quality mass education, healthcare, safety, pensions, infrastructure, social security, public spaces, arts, housing (in no small part) and more. It is key to almost all technical innovation. It is the way we can get out of recession now when the private sector will never achieve that goal. It can be the engine of change for most people's well-being.
It isn't all those thing right now, I agree. That's because it has been captured by the 1% who control most wealth to pursue its goals. They also now, to a large degree, define the enemies of the state as well: most (but of course not all) have always been those who threaten the property rights of the few. That is, I suspect, what motivates much of the NSA's actions. I don't therefore condemn the state for what has happened. I condemn those who are using the state to control populations in the interests of a few for what has happened.
That's not to deny the need for surveillance: it exists. But not like this. What we're seeing is the feral state at work to support the feral economy dominated by a feral, (perversely) stateless few who operate on behalf of feral capitalism. And I'm happy to condemn that, whilst upholding the alternative, which is think is the Courageous State.
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Good to find out where I can get a copy of your book from at last – managed to find a slightly cheaper copy on Alibris – will look forward to reading it!
Whether or not the State is a good thing rather depends on what it does. It is a tool and like any tool can be used for good or bad purposes. I so happen to think that using it to provide social welfare, public services, economic stabilisation and so forth is a good thing and using it to spy on people is a bad thing. I also can’t help noting that it is states neglecting their duty in the former that are so fond of the latter.
Arguments as to whether the state in the abstract is good or bad are besides the point. In modern society they exist and the question is what form they should take. I happen to favour a Social State that respects privacy.
Edward Snowden is right to bring the issue regarding Prism into the public domain, because the US is no longer run by a fully functioning democracy – it is a plutocracy in all but name!
Don’t fool yourself, or be fooled, that other countries, including us, do not do the same.
Until a decade ago one of the largest nsa receiving sites was located in the UK.
So the nsa is builing a dedicated unit to store data. The UK has several such units backing-up state data, and since we have few “whisteblowers” we can bet that the gov is into the same as the US gov.
As I said, not an exclusive US problem. Seems the US has taken lessons from the EU and the UK.
“The Home Office is planning to introduce new surveillance laws that would allow communications traffic data to be stored for up to seven years”
http://www.zdnet.com/home-office-backs-seven-year-data-retention-laws-3002096285/
“There were 2,681 authorisations including 384 for “intrusive” authorisations for break-ins into homes under the Police Act 1997 and Part II of RIPA over 2008-09. There were 16,118 authorisations by law enforcement and 9,894 from other public bodies for directed surveillance in the same period”
“Requests for communications data are very common, and do not require the grant of a warrant. In 2009, there were over 500,000 such requests”
https://www.privacyinternational.org/reports/united-kingdom/ii-surveillance-policies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive
“That’s because it has been captured by the 1% who control most wealth to pursue its goals. They also now, to a large degree, define the enemies of the state as well: most (but of course not all) have always been those who threaten the property rights of the few.”
And this is why the conservatives/neo-liberals are usually hesitant in cutting back spending to the military and intelligence sectors. They are borrowing Mao’s dictum “power comes out of the barrel of a gun”. The elite are happy to demolish the social and economic infrastructures of other nations and then our populations are wondering why “they” (the terrorists) hate us. The terrorism then allows the ‘feral state’ to increase military and intelligence spending, curtail democratic freedoms and so-on. A vicious cycle.
” Ironically, records indicate that corporate entities engaged in such public-private intelligence sharing partnerships were often the very same corporate entities criticized, and protested against, by the Occupy Wall Street movement as having undue influence in the functions of public government”
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-06-11/spying-update