Stallman Warns: Anti-Terror Measures Threaten Civil Liberties
Stallman: Thousands Dead, Millions Deprived of Liberties (2001)
In a 2001 essay, Richard Stallman cautioned that the U.S. response to the September 11 attacks could inflict 'secondary damage' on civil liberties. He criticized proposals for mass surveillance, encryption backdoors, and broad war powers, arguing that such measures would not prevent terrorism but would erode the freedoms America stands for. Stallman urged public opposition before bills became law.
If we are not careful, the deadly attacks on New York and Washington will lead to far worse secondary damage, if the U.S. Congress adopts 'preventive measures' that take away the freedom that America stands for.
- iamnothere
RMS was correct, as usual. Of course he could not have predicted the additional 1 million deaths due to military action (and estimated 3.5 million more from subsequent effects) in the resulting Middle Eastern/Central Asian conflicts over the following years.
- GMoromisato
Just to clarify because my own mental parser failed:
He's not predicting that thousands will die because of mass surveillance--he's saying that the deaths of thousands in the 9/11 attacks are going to let the government deprive millions of their civil liberties.
- Thoreandan
Huh, small world, I'm the one who submitted that to Slashdot.
- aliasxneo
Wrote some of my thoughts somewhat related to this recently [1]. I've simply concluded that its a matter of numbers: the more centralized data becomes the easier it is for the government to coerce access. If the government could obtain the data of a million citizens by coercing or engaging in law fare against one or two companies, it's much easier done. If they had to individually coerce, sue, or otherwise hack into those same million customers, it becomes a lot more expensive and difficult. It sucks that's the way it is, but that's why I think the new internet has to reverse the rules and make authorities more particular about who they track rather than just casting a dragnet across N major providers.
- ryanisnan
> “Given that the human face recognition performed by the check-in agents did not keep the hijackers out, there is no reason to think that computer face recognition would help.”
Even though I agree with the premise of the essay, this is absurdly false today. Computers are really good at this type of thing now, scarily so.