[soraminazuki]

> I don’t blame governments. I blame all you idiots who won’t stop going outside.

It's precisely this kind of reasoning that this article is having problems with. Pre-COVID19, it was because of the terrorists, drug dealers, and pedophiles that we'd have to give up our freedoms. Now, it's because of "us idiots." We the people are "too idiotic" to decide for ourselves, or so you say.

[FillardMillmore]

This is the crux of the issue. It's very easy for "emergency" powers leveraged by the government to become permanent powers. Look no further than the Patriot Act. The public should be following the public recommendations/guidelines as much as they possibly can, but they should also keep a close eye on the government and what powers it grants itself.

[VeninVidiaVicii]

I know it's annecdotal, but now I've had two elderly relatives die -- one from covid-19, and one from a heart attack, in the past few weeks. The second wasn't able to get into the healthcare system because it is just too overstretched. Firstly, causes by a very slow ambulance, and got diverted to an ER just about as far away as you can get.

I have also seen more people walking along our city exercise path than ever before. There's not really a good middle ground here, exercising your civil liberties is resulting in deaths.

[soraminazuki]

I'm most certainly not opposed to saving lives. But we can't just mindlessly approve whatever "solutions" the government comes up with. Some "solutions" are bound to do more harm than good, and mass-surveillance is a prime example considering its potential for abuse. Just as people die from disease, people also die from tyrannical governments. Even if we assume that your government, however unlikely, would forever continue to wield its power wisely, other governments wouldn't care. If we justify the use of mass-surveillance, we would give other tyrannical governments a free pass and more people would be killed or tortured as a consequence. But unlike pandemics, time won't cure tyrannical governments.

[VeninVidiaVicii]

Well, I love the positive attitude implying time will cure pandemics. Cure, in the sense that all things come to an end, the way all bleeding stops, yeah.

I'm currently working as an infectious disease researcher for a state with a lot of political turmoil, and I'll have the be honest, my (profesional) opinion doesn't matter. No single recommendation we have made has had any bearing on the action of our state. These opinions we (you and I) have are moot.

[soraminazuki]

Just to be clear, I'm not dismissing the devastating effects this pandemic has brought. More lives will continue to be lost for the foreseeable future and it will likely have lasting economic implications. But if governments around the world go forward with mass-surveillance, it would be 9/11 all over again. As a direct consequence of 9/11, many innocent lives have been lost. But it's the policy decisions after the incident that has had an even more lasting and devastating effect on our democratic society. People need to keep these things in mind, especially in times of emergencies.

[hurricanetc]

The shelter in place orders started off completely voluntary. People ignored them. And it escalated. People continued to ignore and the policies continued to escalate. We didn’t go from zero to where we are now. People caused this.

[soraminazuki]

There always have been people who act selfishly. I'd bet you anything that it has also been this way when the Bill of Rights was written. Does that mean civil rights was a mistake? Absolutely not.

[krapp]

The same government that added the Second Amendment to the Constitution put down Shay's Rebellion, and when Thomas Jefferson wrote that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure" in reference to that rebellion, he wasn't being complementary.

The founding fathers believed in government, they weren't anarchists, they believed that government could be good and do good, not that government is inherently and irreconcilably hostile to liberty. They also believed in society and the concept of the greater good, not that individual liberty and freedom matter above all else.

Indeed, when Benjamin Franklin said "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety," he was arguing (in a very specific context[0]) against the "temporary safety" of individual liberty versus the "essential liberty" guaranteed by the state.

I wouldn't assume that the founding fathers would side with the people purposely undermining quarantine efforts in this case. They'd probably have such people hanged.

[0]https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/14/how-the-world-butchered-be...

[soraminazuki]

I think you're misunderstanding my intentions.

First, I'm not an anarchist and I'm not suggesting that the founding fathers were either. We all know that governments are necessary for society to function. Still, there must be limits to what the government can do, because after all, governments are run by humans and it'll corrupt eventually if you grant them absolute power. That's why many democratic countries have a constitution to limit governmental powers.

Second, I'm not siding with people undermining quarantine efforts (though I wouldn't agree with hanging them). But that's hardly an excuse for conducting mass surveillance, which this article is about. Mass surveillance simply has no place in a society governed by the rule of law.

[vsareto]

Unless you're an epidemiological or virology expert, you probably are too ignorant to make sound decisions to save lives and prevent damage on a state/national scale for COVID-19. That's not a knock against you, it's just that most of us don't know the details of the many fields of science that go into our daily lives. I have no idea when/if to do mass vehicle recalls in the automotive industry, where to deploy military units for maximum safety like a commanding officer, or how to navigate law with respect to police department enforcing the law in the legal system.

The key difference that didn't settle in with people quickly enough is that they could cause damage with little or no symptoms by just being near other people. Because of how this particular virus works, that meant changing behavior by the time it affected you directly was too late. Many field-ignorant people only change their behavior when it directly affects them.

[soraminazuki]

Yes, we need experts to deal with the pandemic. I'm certainly not opposed to expert opinions influencing policy decisions. But still, a system of mass-surveillance isn't something that should be rushed, even in the face of an emergency. It has far-reaching consequences that is most certainly going to outlast this pandemic, and would likely do more harm than good in the long term. Such things would need full informed consent from the public at the very least, though I'd personally prefer that it wouldn't be considered in the first place given its great potential for abuse.