Any comments on this exchange about the "need to know" issue and
compartmentalization of information?
-- CJR
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 16:29:57 -0800 (PST)
From: Charles J. Reid <cjreid@netcom.com>
To: Ed Cray <cray@almaak.usc.edu>
Hi, Ed!
I can understand that you might disagree with my statement on this issue.
My purpose was to provoke thought. So it's consistent with your purpose,
I should think.
But I am dismayed that you would characterized it as "emotional." Of
course, this is a well known rhetorical tactic. 1) You characterize my
statement as "emotional." 2) By inference your statement is not
emotional. 3) Assumption: emotional statements are not valid or
acceptable. 4) Hence, my statement is not valid or acceptable.
Sorry, Ed. I think any reader will recognize that there is a logical and
unemotional basis of the statement and conclusions I drew.
Let me add to my argument. Let's assume we all lived in a small community
of, say, 200 persons. We'd probably know all there is to know about each
other. Of course, we actually live in a big community of 260 million
people, or 6 billion if we include the world. In this context, while it
would be practically impossible for each of us to know everything about
all of us, we can ask this question: what do we have a right to know
about each other? We also have a meta-question: by what rule or authority
shall we apply to answer this question? We can also ask the contrary
question: what don't be have the right to know? We also need to ask the
meta-question here.
Place these questions, say, in the context of Supreme Court rulings on
electronic surveillance, search and seizure, "national security",
domestic spying, and asset forfeiture. Government bureaucrats have
rarely, if ever, suffered sanction when they sought to know everything
about a target, which often have been selected on ad hoc, illegal,
immoral, and indefensible bases. Of course, we know corporations can also
esentially buy this information. So we have government bureaucrats and
corporations with the resources to find out with de facto impunity anything
they want to about anyone, often by lying, cheating, stealing, and other
unethical tactics.
My argument becomes more refined: as long as some people somewhere are
able to know anything about anyone, we all have the right to know
everything about everyone. As soon as character and integrity become
elements in our culture, and as soon as culture adopts rules respecting
privacy rights, and as soon as these rules become codified into law, and
as soon as they are enforced, and as soon as no one is above the law --
including govevrnment bureaucrats and corporate security officers -- when
these things happen, then perhaps rules governing privacy will be morally
acceptable. We can put this another way: current rules are a joke; they
are violated all the time;therefore, null and void in any moral -- and by
extension, legally acceptable -- sense.
Ed, I can't perceive too much emotion in this reasoning.
But there is an upside to this. There seems to be a natural law the
operates practically: most people don't have the time to devote to
accumulating information about everyone else, hence don't even care. So
the rule I suggest, namely, we all have the right to know everything
about everyone, is not threatening. Like the rule, we all have the right
to swim in the Pacific Ocean, it is a rule that is not important to
everyone all of the time. But, in our current cultural context, it's
better to have this rule -- i.e., we all have the right to know
everything about everyone -- than any other rule, because at least we
know what the real rule is.
-- CJR
On Wed, 14 Jan 1998, Ed Cray wrote:
> Charles:
>
> I am sorry to dissent in part with your comment reprinted below. I do not
> know what public good or a presumed "right to know" is served by revealing
> that this or that person is adopted. Or just how some movie star divided
> his fortune.
>
> What I am trying to get folks to do in pursuing this issue is to think
> critically rather than emotionally. The principles of democracy
> presumably include (after Griswold v. Connecticut) a right to privacy.
>
> The point is that rights guaranteed by the Constitution are in conflict
> all the time, viz., fair trial v. free press. Or licensing of
> broadcasting stations; is not that a form of a) prior censorship and b)
> state licensure of a "printing press." The Founding Fathers were aware of
> both ills, and probably for that reason wrote a freedom of the
> press/speech clause into the Bill of Rights.
>
> Ed
>
>
> On Wed, 14 Jan 1998, Charles J. Reid wrote:
>
> > Hi, Ed!
> >
> > What you say is true, of course! The logically conclusion, then, must be
> > that such laws violate the principles of democracy. If so, then such laws
> > must be considered null and void by the defenders of democracy. Defenders
> > of the such laws are anti-democratic and un-American, especially in a
> > culture where integrity and loyalty to constutitional principle has
> > essentially expired.
> >
> > -- CJR
> >
> > cjreid@netcom.com
> > "Salus populi suprema est lex" (Cicero)
> > The welfare of the people is the highest law.
> > ----------
> > "Genuine goodness is threatening to those
> > at the opposite end of the moral spectrum." (Charles Spencer)
> > ---------------------------------------------
> >
> > On Tue, 13 Jan 1998, Ed Cray wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Tue, 13 Jan 1998, Charles J. Reid wrote:
> > >
> > > > The only acceptable use of the term, "need to know," is with "We all,' as
> > > > in: "In a democracy where people are legally sovereign, we all need to
> > > > know." Corollary: "No one is authorized legally or morally to prevent us
> > > > all from knowing."
> > > >
> > > >
> > > I will not speak to the _moral_ issue, but I just might point out that
> > > legally there are a number of ways that information may be withheld from
> > > the public. In short, many are authorized to prevent us from knowing.
> > >
> > > 1) Gag orders as per _Shepherd v. Maxwell._
> > >
> > > 2) In California, as elsewhere the public records act keeps sealed
> > > personel records, contract bids until legally opened, and discussions by
> > > elected officials about lawsuits filed against or by the entity.
> > >
> > > 3) Judges seal adoptions as a matter of course. Also wills of famous
> > > people.
> > >
> > > 4) Judges seal settlements all the time -- even when the public has a
> > > demonstrable need to know. (I suspect this will be an area of legislative
> > > scrutiny soon.)
> > >
> > > 5) Military secrets real and imagined.
> > >
> > > 6) Arrest records and records of investigations until an information or
> > > indictment is returned.
> > >
> > > 7) Search warrant requests and returns until opened by a judge.
> > >
> > > 8) Grand jury proceedings which do not result in a true bill.
> > >
> > > Etc. etc. etc.
> > >
> > >
> >
>
>