The danger in the current discussion and public opinion lies in the different kind of danger that derive from security threads and threads to individual privacy. Everybody understands easily that criminals are using the internet for their affairs. However, as long as the trust in the state is high, people do not see the danger that derives from the spying activities of the state, that Dhruv evaluated in his arguementation. Most people say they do not have anything to hide, so they do not really care. However, I am convinced that everything that is possible will also be done by someone one day. Supressing single members of the society by using the information they revealed in the social media will therefore happen one day. Democratical principals are already at risk, if it is only done for a small group of politically active citizens. So if a government one day uses facebook informations to intimdate only a very small group of politically active citizens, the whole democratic process doesn’t work anymore efficiently. Also if 99% of the people were not affected by this action.

To become aware of the risk that derives from the fact that all our data is safed on some few serves of big internet companies just imagine the following case: imaging one day a political activist would succeed to hack the servers of facebook and google and would make all information that they have about all their users accessable on a public server. This would make it possible to check which facebook sites your boy-/ girlfriend vistied, to whom he wrote which messages, which porn sites he/she usually visits, ect. ect… Apart from a lot of divorces, a drastic erosion of trust (and theirfore of the social contract) would be the consequence. Suddenly your whole life is transperent. The only way to avoid this is to avoid acting at all.

The example above makes also clear the ‘trade-off’ that a wistle-blower is facing. Publishing all facebook and google data would definitly raise the awareness of the data privacy problem to an ultimative level. However, it would be at a drastical high cost that can not be justified. Publishing secret government reports, like Assange or Snowden did, can maybe be justified, maybe not. But the important thing is, I think, to create other instruments that give you the possibility to change something without breaking any law. This is what we proposed with the European Citizens Initiative‘OpenFacebook’ in the European Democracy Project (see other thread).

Another important issue in this regard is who should be the agent that can guarantee both: security and liberty in the internet. National government fail to guarantee both, as the internet doesn’t stop at national borders. The only way to make national states an efficent agent would be to limit the internet to national borders. This is what some authocratic states try at the moment in order to avoid to have their internet controlled by foreign powers. However, limiting the internet to national borders also means limiting the communication between people to national borders. But it is only the deep connection between people that can guarantee peace between the people in the long run. Division and walls between people makes war more easy. If you don’t know the other than you are more likely to accept the use of violence.

I think therefore it is important to decentralize big parts of the internet and to create an international agent that allows the citizens to define the rules of the internet and the right balance between security and liberty. However, as long as national governments are acting they must be at least controlled by their national courts to guarantee the liberty of its citizens. I therefore defend the action.