1) To get the irony, please try to explain why "surveillance" is bad, but "oversight" is good.
2) I'm not saying under-performing agencies should be fully dissolved. They should be partially dissolved, starting from the head of the agency.
At the same time it does not usually make sense to issue legislation which would regulate what government agencies can and cannot spend budget on.
3) I don't understand what you are asking me here.
If it's legal to suppress freedom of speech, government would do it on regular basis and that would make society less efficient and more likely to end up with authoritarian government.
4) I just detected another important mistake you are making.
It looks like you think that freedom of an individual has an infinite value.
That's a mistake.
Freedom of an individual is very important, but not infinitely important. It's ok to make occasional rare random mistakes if it significantly improves quality of huge number of people.
Attempt to protect freedom of everyone with 100% certainty is doomed to failure, and the end result is much worse than balanced approach.
5) Let me reiterate: privacy is not important only in comparison with other more important issues, such as freedom of speech, freedom from false arrests, and safety.
Of course privacy has value and deserves some protection.
But it is already protected well enough and is not a major concern at this moment.
1) Surveillance is not uniformly bad. It's bad when it turns into an baseless invasion of privacy (such as with warrantless wiretaps). It's bad because of the privacy invasion (and all the negatives that come with that). Oversight of wiretapping is not bad, because it is not an invasion of privacy unless you believe that warrantless wiretapping is a private matter. Such oversight enhances privacy.
2) You've said that they should stop funding such agencies. That's not a partial dissolution. Also, removing the head of an agency still has the same issue. It's rarely the best action. Agencies with constantly-shifting heads are less effective due to constant priority and strategy changes.
And this isn't just an issue of budget. It's not uncommon to forbid agencies from doing illegal things or things outside their jurisdiction.
3) If it's legal to suppress privacy, the government would do it on a regular basis and this would make society less efficient and more likely to end up with authoritarian government.
The government owning everyone's secrets gives them additional power and control. It has many potential abuses.
I'm trying to get you to actually think about what you're saying. The arguments you have about freedom of speech largely apply to privacy. By the arguments you've applied to wiretapping, we don't need oversight into freedom of speech abuses. Why pass strict laws protecting speech? Why worry about the "gray area" abuses? Why not allow the government to engage in widespread speech suppression if it makes them more effective?
Why does speech deserve such attention, except that you happen to believe that it's important for society (which I happen to agree with, but which you've provided no meaningful support for)?
4) A 1% false positive rate might be acceptable for spam, where the loss is simply an email, and the fix is simply to scan the spam folder. A 1% false positive is not an acceptable rate for wiretap-driven arrests, because these are humans, and the fix is a long and complex legal process.
5) Speech is not important only in comparison to more important issues, such as freedom from false arrest. Of course speech has some value and deserves some protection. But it is already protected well enough and not a major concern at this moment.
We're apparently not going to agree on whether privacy is important. What I find more bizarre is that you swing back and forth between privacy being important and not. You've made numerous statements in support of unfettered wiretaps. I feel like you actually do not believe what you're saying, or that perhaps you haven't thought it through very well.
By the arguments you've applied to wiretapping, we don't need oversight into freedom of speech abuses.
That's correct: it's the same as with oversight. There is no need to monitor government about freedom of speech abuses, because such abuses are obvious. If some government agency limits my freedom of speech - I complain and then it's time to act. There is not much to do before anyone complains.
A 1% false positive is not an acceptable rate for wiretap-driven arrests
That's why surveillance might be helpful - it helps to lower ratio of false positive accusations.
But it is already protected well enough and not a major concern at this moment.
I agree that freedom of speech in the US protected well enough to prevent the US from turning into totalitarian state.
So there is no major problem here.
Still the speech is somewhat limited and such restrictions needlessly decrease the efficiency of our society. Couple of examples:
- "Obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment" court rulings. That limits availability of quality publications on the topic.
- Persecution of Wikileaks. That keeps government opaque and hides terrible inefficiencies (such as waste of lives and resources in Iraq and Afghanistan).
2) I'm not saying under-performing agencies should be fully dissolved. They should be partially dissolved, starting from the head of the agency.
At the same time it does not usually make sense to issue legislation which would regulate what government agencies can and cannot spend budget on.
3) I don't understand what you are asking me here. If it's legal to suppress freedom of speech, government would do it on regular basis and that would make society less efficient and more likely to end up with authoritarian government.
4) I just detected another important mistake you are making. It looks like you think that freedom of an individual has an infinite value.
That's a mistake.
Freedom of an individual is very important, but not infinitely important. It's ok to make occasional rare random mistakes if it significantly improves quality of huge number of people.
Attempt to protect freedom of everyone with 100% certainty is doomed to failure, and the end result is much worse than balanced approach.
5) Let me reiterate: privacy is not important only in comparison with other more important issues, such as freedom of speech, freedom from false arrests, and safety.
Of course privacy has value and deserves some protection. But it is already protected well enough and is not a major concern at this moment.