zlacker

The question is 'not a bad thing' for whom? That phrase comes across a bit of doublespeak. Can self serving advocacy by those who financially benefit from surveillance be termed a 'debate', as they are the only ones who make that point. I don't know of anyone clamoring for surveillance as 'its a good thing'. Is it a social good?

The ability of power or authority to lock you up, take your property or worse your life is protected by rule of law and due process. Having a debate of the rule of law or due process is similar to having a debate on privacy or a surveillance state. The consequences are negative for the individual and society as a whole, even though they may benefit some stakeholders in the short term who will of course advocate for it but on the whole it's not a social good.

The only thing we have to come to this conclusion is history, a wide body of knowledge and reason.

We can thus say with some degree of confidence that a society without rule of law or due process is not a good thing similar to a society with surveillance is not a good thing. We don’t use the ‘moral high ground’ but reason and historical experience to make these conclusions. This is not a moral issue but a practical one that has consequences for our societies. The ethical issue is the social good for the people who build these systems.

Since we are discussing the social good the alternative view needs to be backed by reason on how surveillance can be good for society as a whole, beyond offering naive presumptions suggesting people are good and will not abuse the power, or how knowing details of everyone’s activities may be beneficial to an individual or company because while that may be true they do not address the social good.

And the only thing we use in these discussions is reason, let's not make it personal.