PER 2015
CCTV monitoring decreased the number of casualties in airline planes hijacks down to 0 in 2003 and this number has been maintained until now (except from 3 deaths in 2012) 35 . However, under the guise of ‘providing security to its citizens’, the governments enact laws whose ultimate aim is to have a complete insight into people’s lives, depriving them from their negative liberty to privacy. A. C. Grayling in his book “Liberty in the age of terror” points out how the implementation of biometric identity cards will enable storing a complete profile of a person, including their “ fingerprints, DNA and all personal details from address and employment data to health and bank information [that] can be instantly accessed by chip and reader device ”. 36 He further develops the idea of ‘care’ for security of the data meaning that the chips should be “ implanted under the skin of a wrist or in an ear lobe ”! Some would argue that if you do not intend to do anything against the law, you need not worry, but this is not the case. Using that solution, authorities admit that they treat all their citizens as suspects and who knows, maybe in the future they will be able not only to control people’s lives, but to steer them (e.g. you cannot study politics at university, because your genes show weak leadership skills). From state borders to permanent invigilation, these solutions do not serve the interests of society, yet they make for the mad idealists, dreaming of the “Brave New World”, as presented by Aldous Huxley, where a human being is just a machine and its life is unwillingly devoted to the imagined common interest. Coming back to the main question, I think that in this example unrestricted freedom does serve the interest of all as any permanent restriction imposed on the individuals ‘to protect them’ opens the door to absolute power so demanded by some selfish grabbers. In my opinion, every individual should have an unrestricted freedom. It is the most precious value the humanity has ever had. The first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins with: “ All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights ” 37 and this golden rule should apply anytime and everywhere as our privilege to be free in our thoughts and deeds makes us humans. However, people should acknowledge that apart from extending their positive freedoms ad infinitum, they should think about the negative freedom of the others, which they may affect. The idealistic solution to the problem would be a simple approach of love as described by Jesus Christ: “ You shall love your neighbour as yourself ” 38 , but it is obvious that human selfishness, greed and hubris will destroy the harmony once they appear. Therefore, individuals should not only be given the unrestricted liberties, but they need to understand why it matters so much, because only then will they be able to protect it, whether its positive or negative concept.
References and further reading:
Adelman, H., 2002. Refugees and Border Security. Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees , 20(4). Aviation Safety Network, 2012. airliner hijackings. [Online] Available at: http://aviation-safety.net/statistics/period/stats.php?cat=H2 [Accessed: 19 June 2015]. BBC, 2015. Paris attacks: Pope Francis says freedom of speech has limits. [Online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30835625 [Accessed: 20 June 2015].
35 Online source: http://aviation-safety.net/statistics/period/stats.php?cat=H2. Accessed: 19/06/2015 36 Grayling, A. C. (2009) ‘Liberty in the age of terror’, p. 21 37 Online source: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/. Accessed : 20/06/2015 38 Matthew 22:39, English Standard Version (ESV)
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