argument synthesis paper

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Linguistics 100

December 3, 2010

Ineffectiveness Doesn’t Justify the Use of Technology

One duty of the governments today is to protect their people from possible danger and

keep them safe. The danger, for most countries in the modern world, is from crime and

terrorism. The US government, like many other governments today, responds to the threat

with an increasing effort in employment of technologies like surveillance networks, city-wide

closed-circuit television and facial-recognition software, which are believed to contribute to

public security. The Washington DC police have begun constructing a centrally monitored

surveillance system, which is the first of its kind in the United States (Parenti, 2008). The

National Security Agency (NSA) also conducted a secret program of electronic surveillance

outside the framework of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) (Posner, 2008).

Such actions are intended to provide the public with a safer social environment. Nevertheless,

using this kind of technology may also violate individual privacy. Civil liberty activists have

been questioning the government’s approach to the reinforcement of security, arguing that

while the effectiveness of the measures in fighting against crime and terrorism remains to be

proven, they are already known to have been used for political reasons and with abusive

discretion. From the facts that have been collected so far, the government is not yet justified

in using technology that may invade people’s privacy. Although some are optimistic about

the possible benefit of such technology, the action will not be justified until it is proven to be

effective or that its benefits outweigh its flaws.

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Advocating for privacy-invading technology for whatever reason is based on the

essential assumption that the employment of technology will really enhance the security. Will

it? Perhaps it will, but it has not. Those in favor of the use of such technology give seemingly

reasonable explanations, insisting that individual privacy has to be sacrificed “because

modern threats increasingly require that governments collect the information; because

governments are increasingly able to collect it; and because citizens increasingly accept that

they will collect it.”(Chesterman, 2010). But the rationale behind the reasons above are

assumptions that government can succeed in cracking down on crime with the information

collected, and that the citizens will actually see the decrease in possible hazards. Imagine if

no significant achievement had been observed by the public. Would citizens still accept the

collection of personal information? Unfortunately, in Britain, where there is the largest

number of installed surveillance cameras, the record on CCTV has shown no significant

achievement. In London crime is on the rise again despite surveillance, although it was once

declining due to the cameras. And CCTV has never caught one single terrorist on the video

(Parenti, 2008). The facial-recognition system is supposed to be capable of spotting criminals

or terrorists in the crowd; however, a report by the American Civil Liberties Union reveals

that it “never identified even a single individual contained in the department’s database of

photographs”, but “made many false positives, including such errors as confusing what were

to human easily identifiable male and female images” (Kaminer, 2008). So does the increase

in the number of camera necessarily lead to a decrease in the number of criminal and

terrorist? The government will have to make sure the answer to that question is “Yes” before

alleging itself justified in doing so.

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The present ineffectiveness does not strip the technology of a bright future, since

applied science will have to be implemented to make progress. But even if it would become

helpful in fighting against crime and terrorism in the near future, does it justify the violation

of individual privacy? Not necessarily. As a double-edged sword, technologies like

surveillance networks and CCTV have possible negative effects that cannot be neglected.

Their benefits will have to outweigh, or at least balance the unfavorable consequences in

order to be widely-publicized. Those who support the government’s use of privacy-invading

technology believe that “in general, intelligence successes are underreported, while

intelligence failures are fully reported” (Posner, 2008, p.447). But they cannot give the

supposed success a full report, either. On the other hand, the failures are reported with detail

and credibility. In Detroit and DC, CCTV has been used by officers to stalk personal foes,

political opponents and young women. And the gear was deployed several times to monitor

activists and control crowds during mass protests, which shocked and intimidated the

protesters (Parenti, 2008). In order to create a sense of security, the Bush administration

swept up and detained over one thousand immigrants in the wake of the September 11 th

attack, even though the vast majority of them had no apparent connection to terrorism

(Kaminer, 2008). Putting all the citizens in an invisible prison will surely stop criminals and

terrorists from getting away, but the price is to sacrifice the liberty and privacy of the

innocent public. To prove this is worthwhile, the government will have to refine the

technology and system.

Another reason why some people think government is justified in using technology that

may violate privacy is that the violation is not caused by the technology itself, but by the

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current imperfect legislation. As Posner described in his article, “So the problem with FISA is

that the surveillance it authorizes is unusable to discover who is a terrorist” (2008, p.446).

Therefore, considering the public security, the current regulations on surveillance are not

powerful enough, by which Posner is suggesting that some of the restrictions on invading

individual privacy should be lifted for them to work. He believes that if the law redefines

“violation”, this problem is automatically solved. Using law as the criterion of the use of

technology is desirable, but to change the law, legislators will have a strong and legitimate

motivation. The not yet proven effectiveness of surveillance system and unwarranted search

is not enough to make themselves “warranted”. Furthermore, what may convince the public

that it is better to be stalked by a police officer before a monitor than by a criminal in the

street? Posner believes that “not every good thing is legal” and “law and policy are not

perfectly aligned”(2008, p.445). Yet every “good thing” may have its side effects which

keeps it outside the law. Historically, policies should be changed more frequently to stay in

the framework of legislation, whereas laws and regulations are meant to be fair and stable

throughout time.

To conclude, the government is not yet justified in using technology that may violate

individual privacy, despite their good intentions. Before blindly accepting the government

rushing into any actions that it believes to be “necessary”, the public needs to anticipate and

examine the consequences. At the cost of individual privacy, the government should give

back a safer environment, not just false promises.