If you define national security as preserving the American system of government, then no national security cannot be more important than free speech. There is no American system of government without free speech. Attempts to 'secure' the government by limiting free speech indicate the government we sought to protect no longer exists.
National security is used around the world to undermine basic laws and constitutions. This trend has to stop. Best start would be yesterday. Sensible constitutions have protection of privacy for a reason. Now we have old and slow people in power that sell it for a bit of profit.
Yeah and "national security" has always been a form of rhetorical special pleading around the constitution and any check on power.
I personally have this heuristic for if it is potentially valid - if they can't even explain why it is important for National Security it is utter bullshit as a power grab.
National security is the sum total of the individual earned securities
of each citizen, including economic, political, social, health,
cultural, military and all sorts of security that pertain to the
identity we call a nation.
What these guys are talking about is something else. They are talking
about the security of the security services, their own self interests
and the status quo of enmeshed relations between three letter agencies
and a few captured tech giants.
On the contrary, the exact opposite is true. National security is best
served by a diverse, pluralistic, open, heterogeneous tech industry.
There is no reason intelligence needs cannot function properly with
such an ecosystem, but it would have to do so through the Rule of Law,
and systems of warrants that the incumbents have sought to bypass this
last 20 years.
You have a good point here, but I consider this perpetual struggle a matter of liberty vs. power, rather than security. True security actually encourages personal freedoms to an extent.
What did you think they meant when they said "national security"? Obviously it was something like, "we are the nation and we need to secure ourselves from all enemies foreign and domestic".
Bend over for your ritual digital pat-down. Good citizen.
National security is nothing more than the sum total of the individual
securities of each citizen.
If your granny cannot trust technology not to have her bank account
emptied by criminals, and Bob the local businessman cannot have a
conversation free from casual industrial espionage of competitors,
then that's national security. We live within nations that prosper
as a result of our individual prosperity, and which perform a duty of
care to protect those citizens.
The phrase took on grandiose and "special interest" tones during the
Cold War and Vietnam era, particularly under Nixon.
But this is 2022, and I urge you to carefully rethink what that phrase
means in a connected and increasingly hostile world. Everyone's
privacy is a small part of National Security.
What the Constitution says is not how the system actually works. The magic phrase "national security" means they can compel you to do as they please, and find you guilty without due process if you don't. Hell, the FBI is one of the largest CSAM distribution rings in the world, and they can simply "discover" CSAM on your computer if you don't knuckle under. Then you will be legit found guilty and morally discredited for the rest of your life.
If the Feds really want to nail you -- to teach you a lesson and/or make an example out of you -- you're nailed.
There should've been a provision in the constitution against using "national security" as a justification for anything, or any verbiage along those lines. As Picard put it: "The age-old cry of the oppressor."
It's such a beautiful phrase. "National security." Who wouldn't want to help with national security? Are you getting in the way of our nation's security?
(A bit unsettled we now live in an era of "It's illegal to download <app to watch cat videos>," even if the national security concerns were true.)
The real threat to national security is the predominance of special-interest groups who are currently in control of the US Military machine, having it fight un-just, disgusting wars, in the name of the United States of America.
The true threat to national security is the Pentagon itself, which simply wouldn't be necessary if it weren't creating its own reasons for war around the world.
You want real national security? Stand down your soldiers, America. That is the only true way to be secure in your beds, Americans.
"'National Security' is the root password to the Constitution." -- Phil Karn
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