Mass Government Surveillance by Andrew Coddington

Author:Andrew Coddington
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC

John Adams championed the principle that people should be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

CHAPTER 3

The Cons: Presumption of Guilt

As many reasons as there are in favor of mass government surveillance, there are still a number of people who argue that it causes more harm than it is worth. Those who defend privacy do so for both principled and practical reasons. History has shown that surveillance programs are all too easily abused by those directing them; instead of protecting people, surveillance can be used to advance political agendas and personal vendettas. Current headlines demonstrate that government surveillance programs tend to have unintended consequences, including especially the introduction of security vulnerabilities that put ordinary people’s data at risk. Lastly, opponents of surveillance frequently contend that such programs contradict essential liberties, including freedom from government interference in private matters, and that they go against the very core of what it means to be an American.

The Principle of Protecting Innocence

Proponents of mass government surveillance programs argue that the increase in the number of lone wolf attacks, particularly those committed by native-born citizens, means that there is a potential for anyone to commit an act of terror. Because lone wolves do not belong to any one extremist group, receive orders, or otherwise make contact with known terrorist organizations, it is difficult to identify them through more conventional surveillance means, such as monitoring phone calls terminating in foreign countries where there is high extremist activity. Therefore, they argue, it is necessary for the government to collect and analyze as much data on its citizens as possible in order to have a chance at picking out and stopping these radicalized individuals before they have a chance to act.

Opponents of government surveillance, meanwhile, contend that this argument goes directly against one of the longest-held values in the American justice system. This principle is known as the presumption of innocence for the accused. One of the most often quoted thinkers on this principle is the eighteenth-century jurist Sir William Blackstone, one of the preeminent legal scholars in the history of English law. Blackstone once said, “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” Blackstone’s formulation, as it is known, upholds the idea that a democratic society must protect its citizens from abuses of government power over and against the prosecution of criminals because doing so demonstrates a level of trust between the government and its citizens.

Although Blackstone is perhaps most famous for advocating for this essential right of the accused, he may have been inspired by a far older source: the Bible. The first book of both the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, called Genesis, relates the story of how God wanted to destroy two cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, because the residents there had become sexually deviant and violent. When the human Abraham, whom God had chosen to sire a race of chosen people, heard of God’s plan, he had the following conversation with God:

While the two men walked on farther toward Sodom, the Lord remained standing before Abraham.

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