I originally attempted to leave the downside of privacy invasion unsimplified, and thus different people would have different opinions based on their view of this- in other words start a discussion, not look for a "right" answer that I am pretending to know (because I don't). But this is the way I think about it. Perhaps it's still too hard of a problem, but your second paragraph what I was after.
A second, more poignant way of looking at the problem is this (I'll do this one in first person, because it flat-out sucks): My friend just lost his family in a terrorist attack on an airplane. It seems likely (via whatever channels) that the attack could have been averted with more intel that was unavailable due to encryption. My friend knows that I'm against back-doors and government invasion of privacy. What do I tell him in consolation?
I think that questions like this allow us to empathize with the people who are responsible for making the decision. (Of course a counter-example is also possible: Ronald Drump has just used warrantless wiretaps to identify all of the Muslim sympathizers and has started rounding them up...)
> It seems likely (via whatever channels) that the attack could have been averted with more intel that was unavailable due to encryption.
If you don't mind answering, why does it seem likely? (You're welcome to answer that you don't want to talk further about the specific incident, or even say which specific incident it was.) I ask because my estimate of the prior probability of this actually being the case is quite low.
> My friend knows that I'm against back-doors and government invasion of privacy. What do I tell him in consolation?
Being against back-doors and government invasion of privacy doesn't preclude also being against terrorism. (I'm against both.) So you can still tell him that you're sorry he lost his family, and that you hope the people responsible are caught and punished.
In this hypothetical construct, the arrangements for the attack were coordinated via cell phones. We had the ability to be able to control this information but forfeited that ability due to concerns about privacy.
When I tell my friend I'm sorry he lost his family and I hope the people responsible are caught and punished, it will beg the retort that the situation could have been prevented. And people like me are the reason this wasn't prevented.
The hard part of the question is when you look someone in the eye and tell them that their horrible loss is necessary for a greater ideal. I think a lot of idealistic talk goes away when it gets real. (Especially if you have kids.) And my main point is that I can empathize with a candidate who espouses the "ideal" but when it gets real has misgivings.
Oh. I thought you were referring to an actual event.
> the arrangements for the attack were coordinated via cell phones. We had the ability to be able to control this information but forfeited that ability due to concerns about privacy.
Does your hypothetical take into account the future cost of giving up privacy? See below.
> their horrible loss is necessary for a greater ideal
No, it's not for an abstract "greater ideal". It's to avoid the highly concrete consequence of even more people dying when the government gets too powerful.
The problem is that, in situations like your hypothetical, the worse consequence is still in the future, while the bad consequence of avoiding it is in the present. So people are greatly tempted to convince themselves that the worse consequence won't actually come to pass. That's why I talked about looking at history: in historical scenarios that are similar to your hypothetical, we know not just the shorter term gain of giving the government more power--some particular bad thing got prevented--but the longer term cost--millions of people dying because the government got powerful enough that its screwups were catastrophic.
So, at the wake for my friend's family you are going to give a history lesson on big bad privacy-invading government; "freedom isn't free" or something. I have a hunch that won't play well. (Yes, the idea that our government will do horrific things down the line is abstract to most people. It's fitting a pattern of past behavior by bad governments to our current scenario. Most people don't actually believe that our government is engaging in world-criminal or war-crime behavior that needs to be stopped. The idea that it will turn on its own citizens is pretty far-fetched to them.)
We've probably gone on long enough in this thread, but my feeling is that if you want to get people to fear their government more than the terrorists, you have to make it as personal to them as the fear of terrorism already is. Until somebody can do that well we are all just preaching to the choir here.
And in order to have that conversation, we have to be ready to ask the other, uncomfortable one that I've been posing: "What is X such that privacy invasion is acceptable?" One planeload of people per decade? Per year?
We can ask it with a slightly different thought experiment. "OK the NSA surveillance data allowed us to thwart 5 plots last year; probably saved 200 lives. Turn it off, it's not worth it in the long run." If we replace 200 by X, what is X such that you, President pdonis, let the NSA program survive? How about President dhimes? President ady_ppp or President jkestner? I'm not asking for answers here, but just to consider this as a very real question faced by people who have to make these decisions, and that a whole lot of people would say X = 0 when it comes time to make that decision. I think Obama might be one of those.
NB I'm actually in pretty good agreement with you on the privacy debate, but I think that concrete questions like these need to be discussed.
> at the wake for my friend's family you are going to give a history lesson on big bad privacy-invading government
Why in the world would I want to do that at the wake? Do you insist on stating all of your personal beliefs to everyone on every occasion?
Anyway, I already suggested what to tell your friend, and it wasn't anything like this.
> my feeling is that if you want to get people to fear their government more than the terrorists, you have to make it as personal to them as the fear of terrorism already is.
Sure, that's easy: just describe what a Nazi or Soviet concentration camp was like, and ask, how would you like to live in one of those? The only reason that might seem less "personal" to people these days is that 9/11 happened more recently than WWII or the Cold War. But that's not a rational reason to fear terrorism more than excessive government power.
(For extra credit, you could describe how the Nazis came to power in Germany: they were voted in by a democratic election.)
> the NSA surveillance data allowed us to thwart 5 plots last year; probably saved 200 lives.
But the problem is that, while the President gets to see these numbers, we the people don't. They're secret. So the decision can't be made as a public decision where we can have a debate and then vote. It has to be made unilaterally by the very small number of people who actually have the relevant data.
Also, phrasing the question as "how large must X be for the program to survive" forecloses the possibility of finding other ways to save the same number of lives, without sacrificing everyone's privacy.
Why in the world would I want to do that at the wake?
That was your answer to the question I posed. You keep wanting removed conversations- that's the easy part. The hard part is what do you say when you have to look someone in the eye and explain yourself.
But the problem is that, while the President gets to see these numbers, we the people don't. They're secret. So the decision can't be made as a public decision where we can have a debate and then vote.
Precisely! That's why we have to be willing to discuss it also. Otherwise they have to make the determination and we all get to sit back and throw rocks at them. That's easy and cowardly for us, and not really good for them.
Also, phrasing the question as "how large must X be for the program to survive" forecloses the possibility of finding other ways to save the same number of lives, without sacrificing everyone's privacy.
No, nothing about this is mutually exclusive with (to?) working on better ways to keep us safe that help us keep our privacy. Of course, it would be difficult to regain that privacy, but I would definitely want sunset clauses built into any program or laws the I (as President dhimes) would sign off on.
It most certainly was not. I said you could tell your friend that you're sorry and you hope the people responsible are caught and punished. I said nothing about giving a speech at the wake on the dangers of giving up privacy. You said it wouldn't play well, which is of course true; but that's precisely why you don't want to have that discussion at a wake. You want to have it when there's no immediate issue at hand, so people can be reasonably objective.
> The hard part is what do you say when you have to look someone in the eye and explain yourself.
If your friend comes and asks you point blank why you're against giving up privacy, given what happened to his family, then you have to answer him, yes. But that is worlds different from making a speech, unprompted, at a wake.
If he asks you, your honest answer would have to be that, while you are sorry about his family and hope that the people responsible are caught and punished, you still believe that, in the long run, the dangers of excessive government power are greater than the dangers of terrorism. (That's assuming, of course, that you actually do believe that. But if not, what's the point of the hypothetical?) What else can you say? Your friend probably won't like it, but he's your friend; you've got to be honest with him.
> That's why we have to be willing to discuss it also.
You're missing the point. We can't discuss it because we don't know the facts. And we can't be told the facts because, if there is any benefit to the surveillance, making public how much benefit we get would destroy the benefit. That's why all of these activities are kept secret in the first place.
> Otherwise they have to make the determination and we all get to sit back and throw rocks at them.
We can, but nothing forces us to. Anyone who believes it's worth it for the government to do mass surveillance, and any other covert activities for that matter, has to also be willing to not criticize decisions made based on data that can't be made public. Otherwise they're just a hypocrite who wants the benefits without the costs. I would say that the main source of hypocrisy about that is not individual citizens, but the press.
A second, more poignant way of looking at the problem is this (I'll do this one in first person, because it flat-out sucks): My friend just lost his family in a terrorist attack on an airplane. It seems likely (via whatever channels) that the attack could have been averted with more intel that was unavailable due to encryption. My friend knows that I'm against back-doors and government invasion of privacy. What do I tell him in consolation?
I think that questions like this allow us to empathize with the people who are responsible for making the decision. (Of course a counter-example is also possible: Ronald Drump has just used warrantless wiretaps to identify all of the Muslim sympathizers and has started rounding them up...)