SAY IT LOUD DON’T LET THE GOVERNMENT TAKE IT AWAY
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SAY IT LOUD DON’T LET THE GOVERNMENT TAKE AWAY YOUR COMMUNICATION RIGHTS
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COLOPHON
SCHOOL Academy of Art University DEPARTMENT Graphic Design STUDENT Zijian Ken Li PHONE 415-519-3295 EMAIL li.zijian.x@Gmail.com INSTRUCTOR Phil Hamlett TYPEFACE Akzidenz-Grotesk BQ ©2011 All Right Reserved.
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FOR OUR RIGHTS
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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OUR COMMUNICATION RIGHTS 06 What is Happening 18 The Initial Public Reactions 24 The Initial Public Idea
GOVERNMENT’S IMPACT ON COMMUNICATION 30 38 48 54 56
Monitoring Issue Over-Expansion National Security Organizations The Impact of PATRIOT Act. on Our Privacy The Impact of PIPA/SOPA on Online Communication The Solution
PUBLIC VOICE ON COMMUNICATION RIGHTS 72 64 70 82
The Current Public Idea The Current Public Reactions The Complaints on Government Conduct The Solution
OUR COMMUNICATION RIGHTS IN THE FUTURE 90 92 94 96
Protect Our Communication Rights Reduce The Conflicts Between Public and Government The Solution Control The Balance Between Rights and Responsibility 005
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1 OUR COMMUNICATION RIGHTS On July 14, 2011, the news about BART shut down their cell phone signal in the tunnel caught my attention. I never knew that there would be a such strong restriction action in the U.S. In November 2011 , two new bills about censorship on internet try to get pass by congress, and now they were held hearing and can pass. I think the American will soon face a lot of communication rights issues, and these two news just the beginning. I hope the public can know their situation by reading this book, and then we can go together to make trying to change this situation.
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WHAT IS HAPPENING
BART Shut Down The Cellphone Signal in Some Tunnels Four BART stations in San Francisco had shut down their cell phone signal on August 11, to prevent a planned protest from materializing. James Allison, deputy chief communications officer for BART, reports BART staff or contractors shut down power “to the nodes and alerted the cell carriers.” A group named “No Justice, No BART” intended to descend upon BART stations to protest the shooting of Charles Hill, a homeless man who was killed by BART police officers on July 3. They planned to show up inconspicuously on the Thursday and then come together on the platform and, at about 5 PM, pull out signs and demand the officer who shot Hill should be fired. They also intended to demand the police chief be fired for lying at a press conference on the shooting and issue calls for the BART police be disbanded. BART Police Intelligence immediately make a plans for the protest, and believed the action would lead to the “platform overcrowding and unsafe conditions for BART customers, employees and demonstrators.” BART thought organizers intended to use mobile devices to coordinate “disruptive activities” and communicate about the location and number of BART Police in stations. So, as the BART spokesman said, the service was shut down so the protest wouldn’t “become viral.” “A cost benefit analysis 008
OUR COMMUNICATION RIGHTS
WHAT IS HAPPENING
ABOVE BART police officers in riot gear face off protesters.
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of where your freedom of speech begins to threaten the public safety” was done, Johnson said. This speech means BART found it appropriate to censor communications to obstruct free speech and assembly.
BART started offering wireless signal in their tunnel in 2004. It’s the first transit system to offer connectivity on the underground lines. In this case, the wireless connectivity is more like a perk than a requirement.
The protesters didn’t showed up , but BART’s shut down actions caused a new wave of protest and discussion. Eva Galperin, a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) wrote in reaction to the possibly unprecedented move, “BART officials had shown themselves to be of a mind with the former president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, who ordered the shutdown of cell phone service in Tahrir Square in response to peaceful, democratic protests earlier this year.” Cutting off service, she added, constitutes “prior restrain on the free speech rights of every person in the station, whether they’re a protestor or a commuter.”
But American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) attorney Michael Risher didn’t think so. “It may be BART’s equipment, but that doesn’t mean they have the rights to do whatever they want to with it.”
Was BART’s action necessary? Or it was draconian? Whatever the answer is, this issue destined to be a symbol of the over restrict, or censorship. BART just illegal use their power to control people’s speech, and take public’s rights to access to wireless network. BART keep cited on public safety in this case. AS a government agency, BART have to protect public safety, but this threat was protest a not terrorist act.
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OUR COMMUNICATION RIGHTS
WHAT IS HAPPENING
“If government was seizing printing presses to keep people from understanding or learning something, I think traditionally in this country that would just be beyond the pale. The question is, does a momentary disruption of cellphone service constitute that kind of level of government interference with speech?” —Gene Policinski, executive director of the First Amendment Center
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OPPOSITE UPPER Website of the Firefox during American Censorship Day. OPPOSITE LOWER Website of the Electronic Frontier Foundation(EFF) during American Censorship Day.
PROTECT IP Act & Stop Online Piracy Act (PIPA/SOPA) PROTECT IP ACT that was introduced by Senators Patrick Leahy, Orrin Hatch, and Chuck Grassley and aimed at countering illegal online sale of counterfeit goods. The bill attempts to not only restrict the ability of “rogue websites” to access any citizen through the Internet, if the intent is to conduct a transaction for economic gain with stolen property, but also provides consequence for such behavior. The PROTECT IP Act would give the U.S. Department of Justice the power to seek a court order against an allegedly infringing Web site, and then serve that order on search engines, certain Domain Name System (DNS) providers, and Internet advertising firms, who would be required to make the target Web site invisible. Stop Online Piracy Ac, or SOPA, is the House version of the bill, introduced by Representative Lamar Smith,it’s backed by powerful business lobbies and has bipartisan majority support in both the House and Senate. If it does pass, the only thing that could shut it down would be a veto by President Obama. SOPA, if passed, would give the U.S. government the rights to blacklist any website found to have infringing material. It using DNS filtering techniques similar to those employed by 014
OUR COMMUNICATION RIGHTS
WHAT IS HAPPENING
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ABOVE Tumblr informed users about the Protect-IP Act and Stop Online Privacy Act by “censoring” users’ dashboards. The above plot displays the increase in posts on Tumblr mentioning ‘SOPA’ or ‘censorship’ from the beginning of NOV 16 up to just a few minutes ago. We launched the announcement just after 11:00 EST and were quickly producing 3.6 calls per second to representatives around the country.
China and Iran. What’s “infringing material”? Anything deemed in violation of copyright, say a few posts by users in a web forum or on a social network—even links sent in email. What’s more, a website or Internet communication medium’s owners would be held liable for any infringing content, and the government would be empowered to cut off revenue to those sites’ owners and force search engines to block them, too. It’s understandable to protect people who have made their livelihood based on intellectual property. The entertainment industry would be the prime beneficiary of this proposed legislation because their intellectual property rights are often plundered by unscrupulous people living outside the United States and making a fortune from their ill-gotten gains. However, after taking a closer look at the proposed statute, the lid on Pandora’s box looks like it’s about to be removed. PIPA is vague enough that it leaves the door open for the federal government to give corporations deriving profits from their intellectual property creations to go after a person who unwittingly posts an offending link on their social media profile, have that person’s social media profile removed from the host site,and hold the host site responsible for what the user posted. Another infraction could be that someone posts a video on service sup-
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porter, like YouTube that just so happens to have a movie or song playing in the background and this could be construed as violating the original artist’s intellectual property rights. Passing the Protect IP Act (PIPA) won’t do anything to solve the problem of people stealing intellectual property over the Internet. People who already steal intellectual property either already know how to access websites that have been blocked by the government or are adept at finding ways to get what they want. This act could jar the Internet at its very core, resulting in an Internet with less security, innovation, and ingenuity. PROTECT IP ACT could affect how you earn a living online.
OUR COMMUNICATION RIGHTS
WHAT IS HAPPENING
“SOPA raises serious First Amendment concerns for U.S. citizens, as well. The prospect of ISPs and search engines disappearing entire sites when they have violated no U.S. law (but only facilitated unlawful acts of third parties) raises serious concerns. Those concerns are exacerbated because SOPA permits these sanctions against sites when unlawful activities are limited only to a portion of the site.” —Google Inc.
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THE INTERNET’S “BLACK HOLES” Belarus, Burma, China, Iran, LLibya, Maldives, Nepal, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam
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THE INITIAL PUBLIC REACTIONS
From the recent events, The government and local district showed their strong attitude to the restriction activities. They shut down network, made new laws to expand their power and rights. It seem they thought when facing the “chaos”, the restriction is the only solution. But what is the public’s think?
For The Cellphone Signal Shut Down in BART Station Case A CBS 5 poll released after this case found that a majority of the public in the Bay Area supported the transit agency’s decision and rejected the free speech arguments from the above groups. This poll showed the result: 58 percent bay area residents thought BART just did the right decision; 62 percent respondents trust that no people’s rights were violate in this case; 52 percent respondents said no one was put into a danger situation by the shutdown of cellphone signal and wifi service in several underground metro station. In this poll, some people think using a cell phone is not a rights, it’s a privilege. So there is no rights was violate in this case. They said if you need to use your cell phone, just leave the train station. Some of the public didn’t support the protest because the protesters are attacking the public, these protesters tried to
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OUR COMMUNICATION RIGHTS
THE INITIAL PUBLIC REACTIONS
ABOVE People were forced to leave BART station after BART shut it down.
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stop the train in the rush hour, the only people they hurt is the commuters, not the BART. They were harming the public. Of cause, no everyone supported this decision. Some public interest groups like the American Civil Liberties Union; Electronic Frontier Foundation contended at BART is went too far in this case. Also, part of public show their concern of this restrict activity. They thought BART just do what they want to do without thought about public’s interest. The most important thought is: this action would cause a bad effect in restriction. They worried about the government or local district would use this way to control public’s rights. It goes well beyond BART issue. If BART just put “shut dow cellphone service” in their toolbox, and other local enforcement agencies will start copying this. If that happen, it will cause series of problem in public rights. This BART case show the different attitude between different public group. For majority public, they care more about their daily lives are interrupted. They tents to support the government restrict to stop riot and chaos. The other type of public, like the activist, who has more sensitive on rights and politics, will concern about the effect of these type of actions. They tend to stop the government’s mistake and want to make changes to the other public.
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DIFFERENT PUBLIC, DIFFERENT REACTIONS.
Did BART do the right thing? Or the wrong thing?
33% WRONG THING
58% RIGHT THING
Did BART shutting down cell phone service violate anyone’s right?
9% NOT SURE
62% NO
30% Yes
8% NOT SURE
Source: SurveyUSA News Poll #18506 023
For Stop Online Piracy Act/ Protect IP Act (SOPA/PIPA) case This issue have a different situation from the BART issue. It’s a latest news, and it is a specific case which focus on the piracy issue on internet. No much majority public which was defined in ordinary way paid attention on this case. But a large number of people who is defined the public on internet world show their attention on it. Most of internet user doesn’t like SOPA and PIPA. The Internet is a good idea, it’s a place to share, take communication and spread knowledge. But the congress want to go and ruin the internet for their interest, benefit a few reactionary trade groups, who want to control, or censor to innovation. The bill Protect IP Act and its house version Stop Online Piracy Act aim to eliminate websites that have pirated contents. One blog owner use a example from youtube: A young mother was sued because she uploaded a video clip of her baby which use a pop music as the background music. This example shows the concern of most internet users. The government or trade groups might abuse this bill to sue the internet users, and the worse is, this actions might destroy the internet.
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If this bill passed, the government will have the right to censor the whole internet, they can ask the service supporter, like youtube, facebook to remove the pirated content from their user’s page, or even close the whole website. This time, some big internet company stand at the users side. Like google, Facebook, Twitter, eBay, Linkedln, Mozilla, Kickstarter, Yahoo, AOL show their attitude to opposed to the bill. The question from public is, how the government define the pirated content, and how they control their power?
OVER 6,000 SITES SIGNED UP TO OPPOSE THAT BILL
OVER 1,000,000 EMAILS TO CONGRESS
3.6 PER SECOND
CALLS THROUGH TUMBLR AND MOBILE COMMONS TO CONGRESS
Source: Americancensorship.org 025
THE INITIAL PUBLIC IDEA
Part 1: The Ideas From Conversation Group I have two conversations with 10 people for this specific topic. These 10 people have different background, but have some connection to my topic. It’s a good chance to talk to real people. I made a vote at the beginning of the conversation. I put 3 selections on each vote, they are Safety, Freedom and Neutral. All participants should voted for their choice before the conversation start. The reason I set this vote was I want to see the general public’s idea. The result of the vote is: 3 for freedom, 4 for safety and 4 for Neutral. The result was not surprise me actually. Because so many people support the restriction action in the BART case. Most of them have similar idea: They can sacrifice part of their rights for safety. Because in their experience, the government’s actions and laws are trying to protect all of us. Whitney said: “I’m willing to sacrifice my ‘freedom’ to save more people’s life, because I think too much “freedom” would sometimes lead to more destruction. Therefore, I think giving up my freedom could prevent some worse scenario to happen.” When I asked them, do you worry about the government will abuse their powers on public? Most of them said “no”. “I believed I lived in a country emphasized in having freedom for the people.” George said. Almost everyone agreed this idea. They thought 026
OUR COMMUNICATION RIGHTS
THE INITIAL PUBLIC IDEAS
ABOVE Participants were writing the votes.
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“I’m willing to sacrifice my freedom to save more people’s life, because I think too much freedom would sometimes lead to more destruction. Therefore, I think giving up my freedom could prevent some worse scenario to happen.” —Whitney Lau, Participant of Conversation Group
The United States is, and will continually be a country with liberty. They think the in the BART issue, BART just try to protect other commuters’ rights from the protester’s effect, that shut down action is acceptable. They also thought If BART or other local agency goes too for in this kind of case, there will have a bill or law to stop that unlawful activities, and we don’t need to worry about that. Although they support that restriction actions, the participants talk about their second important idea: “We have our bottom line. If government cross the line, we will change our mind and against the government.” Gerg used the example in China. “It also depends on how my freedom is taken. For example, the blocking Facebook in China is a little too extreme to me. I will protest for it, but security check in airport, I have no complain for it, because I believed some amount of protecting is needed”. At the beginning of second part of the conversation. I asked some questions to all participants, “How many government’s new restriction actions do you know? Do you know the situation of government restriction in America?” Most of the answers are “I don’t know”. (Continues on page 58)
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3 VOTES FREEDOM
VOTE RESULT: 4 VOTES NEUTRAL
4 VOTES SAFETY
7 out of 11 Participants are American
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2 GOVERNMENT’S IMPACT ON COMMUNICATION In the conversation group, most participants express their idea that they don’t know much about the government restrictions and policies. It seem the government is not want us to know much about their actions on this area. On the other side, it seems the public can’t find a way to get the news about this government policies. So these questions just came into my mind: What is the true face of our government? What is the real situation of government restriction? And what is the world we live in?
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MONITORING ISSUE
After the terrorist attacks of 2001, the America is assembling a vase domestic intelligence apparatus to collect the information about Americans. They using from local agency to FBI, even the military investigators. The monitoring system is growing so fast, and also so large. It become the largest intelligent collection system in the states’ history. It collects, stores and analyzes thousands of citizens and residents’ information, even they have not been market to do anything wrong. It seems the government want to have every state law enforcement agency can feed information into Washington to help them against the terrorism. President Obama administration the local approach as a needed evolution in the country confronts terrorism. In the recent years, the FBI keep expanding its database. The Database stores the profiles of thousands of American and legal residents who have never been accused of any crime. The effectiveness of this database is collecting the identities of people who are not known as a criminal or terrorist, and being able to quickly find out in-depth information of them. In response to the privacy issue, the FBI officials say anyone with the access has been trained in privacy rules and the penalties for breaking them. But this answer still no solute the concern about privacy because the database just opens a door for all kinds of
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GOVERNMENT’S IMPACT ON COMMUNICATION
MONITORING ISSUE
ABOVE William R.Snodgrass Tennessee Tower, the Tennessee Office of Homeland Security. It monitors terrorism threats to the state.
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“I don’t know whether they have enough control to see if that policy is implemented.” —Michael German, a former FBI agent now lead the campaign of security and privacy matters
abuses.Michael German, a former FBI agent now work in the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who leads campaign on the national security and privacy matters. “How do we know there are enough control?” The government defines a suspicious activity as”observed behavior reasonably indicative of pre-operational planning related to terrorism or other criminal activity”. It is a definition from the government, but it seems they didn’t explain it very well. So, the problem is, it doesn’t have a clear range for suspicious activity. It give the government such a large range to explain their abuse of monitoring. The worse thing is, the government can use the system to arrest one and have enough reasons to explain their actions. A example just show my idea above. A suspicious activity report from a local law enforcement say “a man is taking photographs of the Orange Country Sheriff Department Fire Boat and the Balboa Ferry with a cellular pone camera.” And a confidential report said “the subject next made a phone call, walked to his car and returned five minutes later to take more pictures. He was then met by another person, both of whom stood and “observed the boat traffic in the harbor. Next another adult with two small children join them, and then they all boarded the ferry and crossed the channel.”
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It sounds like a sense from the movie, right? But it actually happened in our ordinary life. Can you just image one day, you will become the subject in the suspicious activity report? Only because you take some photo or stand in front of a special place?
As of December 2010, there were
161,948 suspicious activity files in the FBI database.
Source: Washington Post 035
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ABOVE Logo of IARPA.
The Intelligence Want to Predict Your Behavior with “Data Eye In The Sky” On the Internet, we can research the unprecedented macro view of human nature. But now, our government want to tap into this massive amount of information available online to build an automated “data eye in the sky,” which could enable the prediction of economic crises, political unrest and revolutions, and other events that affect humanity on a large scale. The project is being operate by an US intelligence agency and called Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), which is beginning to collect ideas for the public monitoring system from companies and academics. The New York Times had a article about this project. It said “ The automated data collection system is to focus on communication, consumption and movement of populations. It will use public accessible data, like web search, blog entries, internet traffic flow, traffic webcams and the online knowledge database.” Not limited to economic and social upheaval, IRAPA’s project also aims to detect pandemics and other forms of widespread disease, something Google has already attempted to do with its massive amount of information and database. Not surprisingly, IARPA’s plan to keep an eye on all of humanity has privacy advocates worried. The plan specifically reminds 038
them of the Pentagon’s Total Information Awareness initiative, which aimed to catch potential terrorists before they acted by monitoring phone calls, emails, credit card transactions and travel data. “I have Total Information Awareness flashbacks when things like this happen,” said St. Martin’s University anthropologist David Price. “On the one hand it’s understandable for a nation-state to want to track things like the outbreak of a pandemic, but I have to wonder about the total automation of this and what productive will come of it.” While the data collect help catch things like flu outbreaks, or predict political uprisings in other countries, but it could also be used on the citizen unrest, to win election, or for malicious purposes not yet thought possible. Whether this data monitoring system is used for good or evil remains to be seen. All we know is,, this system is power, really powerful. As a example, If I can access this system and get the information of your one hour activities, and I have a very high accuracy, may be 94 percent, that I can predict what will you do or where will you go in the next following day. Of cause, we hope the government will only use this system to do something good, but beware of it. You privacy, your footprint, your online record can deeply affect your life in the near future.
GOVERNMENT’S IMPACT ON COMMUNICATION
MONITORING ISSUE
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OVER-EXPANSION NATIONAL SECURITY ORGANIZATIONS
Like the previous article mentioned, after the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001, the government just enlarge their authority to monitor and restriction public. But they want to do more on that. The government also enlarges and expands their agencies, and even the related organizations. In the United States, everyday there are 854000 civil servants, military personnels and private contractors work on the topsecret clearances in the offices which were protected by surveillance camera and electromagnetic locks. This is not the scenes of “military-industrial complex”, which was described by President Eisenhower in the Cold War to deter the Soviet Union. This is the national security enterprise which aim to defeat the extremist violate. At the 9.11 terrorist attack, 20% of the government organization add the counterterrorism to their daily schedule. Also, the scale of government agencies grown fast. For example, the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency increased its employees from 7500 in 2002 to 16500 until today. The number of domestic counterterrorism organization is also growing fast. After 9.11 attack, this country increased 235 law enforcement organizations; 76 more emergency management organizations were set up to response the disaster like biological, chemical and nuclear attack; 285 more homeland security organizations were add and expanded their scope of work from 040
GOVERNMENT’S IMPACT ON COMMUNICATION
OVER-EXPANSION SECURITY ORGANIZATIONS
ABOVE The headquarter building of Director of National Intelligence(DNI). It also functions as the National Counterterrorism Center. Located in McLean, Virginia.
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the boarder to the center America; 101 Joint Terrorism Task Force and annexes and 132 other counterterrorism organizations activities across the country; 69 fusion centers and 36 intelligence organization was created to analyze the increase information. From 2003 to 2010, the United States spend 29.4 billion dollars in homeland security.
The Problem Insides The Government With the added employee units and organizations, the boarder of responsibility began to blur. To remedy this, President W. Bush and Congress decided to create an agency called Office of the Director of National Intelligence(ODNI) to make the situation under control. The idea of this ODNI is to establish an authority to oversee,manage, and control the entire intelligence apparatus. Everything seems right, but two problem came out. First, The law didn’t give the director clear legal authority over intelligence matters. It means the director of ODNI didn’t have the power to control the individual agencies that he was supposed to control; Second, The Defense Department shifted billions of dollars out of one budget and put it into another so the ODNI can’t touch it. And the CIA can reclassified some of the sensitive information at a higher level so the ODNI staff wouldn’t allowed to see it. In this case, the problem become the Defense Department and the other intelligence agencies like CIA have more power over 042
the regulatory agencies like ODNI. As we know, the intelligence have the power and ability to the monitor and collect the information of the public. In the above case, my concern is the problem inside the government. Even the government agency can use the law and policy to avoid the regulation. From this point, the issue is not only between public and government, It expanded to between government and government.
17-Element Intelligence Community Which was Overseen by ODNI Central Intelligence Agency Defense Intelligence Agency Department of Energy Department of Homeland Security Department of State Department of Treasury Drug Enforcement Administration Federal Bureau of Investigation National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency National Reconnaissance Office National Security Agency Central Security Service United States Air Force United States Army United States Coast Guard United States Marine Corps United States Navy 043
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Some and
1,271 1,931
10,000
government organizations private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about locations across the United States.
An estimated
854,000 In Washington DC and the surrounding area,
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people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances. building have completed for top-secret intelligence work since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings Source: Washington Post 045
3,050
Counterrorism organizations before 9.11
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Source: Washington Post 047
+235 LAW ENFORCEMENT ORGANIZATIONS +76 EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT ORGANIZATIONS +285 HOMELAND SECURITY ORGANIZATIONS +69 FUSION CENTERS +36 INTELLIGENCE ORGANIZATIONS +132 OTHER COUNTERTERRORISM ORGANIZATIONS 048
3,984
Domestic Counterterrorism organizations after 9.11 Source: Washington Post 049
THE IMPACT OF PATRIOT ACT ON OUR PRIVACY
On October 24, 2011, the U.S. PATRIOT Act was passed into low by the Congress of the United States. It was 45 days after the September 11 attacks, so this act was passed with virtually no debate. There are significant flaws in the Patriot Act, flaws that threaten your fundamental freedoms by giving the government the power to access your medical records, tax records, information about the books you buy or borrow without probable cause, and the power to break your door down at your home and conduct unconstitutional searches or if your not home search your home or business in secret without telling you for weeks, months, or even indefinitely. The U.S. government has turned American freedoms into a world wide issue with their spying on ordinary American. They using “national security” and “suspected terrorism” as the excuse for the issues on free speech rights of Americans without adequate oversight. It could eliminate protections against unlawful imprisonment and many rights in U.S. legal system are absent and violation of due process for all Americans. The U.S. citizen was been seen as “enemy combatant” If evidence is obtained by coercion, government lawyers contend that it should still be allowed as a basis for conviction. The public should be very uncomfortable with the collection of their records by the government who using the PATRIOT Act to demand your private information by order of secret courts and 050
GOVERNMENT’S IMPACT ON COMMUNICATION
THE IMPACT OF PATRIOT ACT ON OUR PRIVACY
ABOVE Several controversial provisions of the nearly decade-old Patriot Act are about to expire, and Congress has to decide whether or not to extend them.
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OPPOSE & NEXT PAGE PATRIOT ACT. truth posters by American Civil Liberties Union.
the muzzling of those citizens who receive such orders from speaking publicly about them. This is a violation of First and Fourth Amendment. Not only the collection of government, the public will also oppose the collection of both private and business record by bank, pharmacies and other business which are using the PATRIOT Act to demand your private information. There has never been a more urgent need to preserve fundamental privacy protections and our system of checks and balance than the need we faced. The illegal government spying, provisions of the PATRIOT Act and government sponsored programs transcend the bound of law and our treasured values in the name of national security and counterterrorism and just the allegation of suspected terrorist activities be it true or not.
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GOVERNMENT’S IMPACT ON COMMUNICATION
THE IMPACT OF PATRIOT ACT ON OUR PRIVACY
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GOVERNMENT’S IMPACT ON COMMUNICATION
THE IMPACT OF PATRIOT ACT ON OUR PRIVACY
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THE IMPACT OF PIPA/SOPA ON ONLINE COMMUNICATION
Protect IP Act (PIPA) and Stop Online Piracy (SOPA) drew opposition from the tech and First Amendment quarters, so many of the issues remain the same. The intent of SOPA is to help combat online piracy. This is a laudable goal; however the unintended consequences are scary for intermediaries, websites with user generated content, DNS providers, and those of us who rely on the Internet as a vibrant and rich communications network. SOPA is introduced by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith whit a well intention effort to reduce online copyright infringement. It is severely flawed and has much boarder implication than its senate version, POIP. Copyright protection is really important to free speech. But it is much important that such protection remains consistent with constitution principles and only impacts those who illegally use protected contents. Under the PIPA and SOPA, the attorney would be able to identify an internet site that content pirated contents and then serve a court which can force the internet service providers to block access to the accused site. While they sounds productive and effective, the lack of narrowly tailored language could lead to the shut down of the site with little infringing contents, PIPA and SOPA also not assure that those whose material will be blocked. The most obvious concern is it may causes a whole website be shutdown with by a small piece of infringing material. It will leads to a self-censor problem to website owner. 056
The United States is a country that pride itself on protecting free speech, it is important that the U.S. can set a example to other countries with fewer protection on free speech. If the U.S. adopt an overly broad online infringement take down law, It will deeply harm the country’s image in the world. It is highly possible to preserve a free speech principles while maintaining the strong online copyright protections. The PIPA and SOPA are just provide that kinds of protection. If them get pass, the free speech in the U.S. will be harmed.
CENSORSHIP
AS A RESULT TO THE INTERNET Sites’ self-censorship increases dramatically. Fewer startups lunch, due to risk legal climate.
After SOPA BEFORE SOPA Self-Censorship on Internet
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PROMOTION PROBLEM The government doesn’t promote its new decision very well. Public always get the related information after the new policy have been executed.
AUDIENCE The American Citizens
SOLUTION A booklet published by government include the latest policy news and government decision information. The contents must be well designed and easy to read.
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3 PUBLIC VOICE ON COMMUNICATION RIGHTS For most of the public, they don’t know the government’s latest policies or plans. After they know the real power of the government, they show concern emotions. They think the current government have been given too much authorities. Although the government commit they will protect the public interest, that kind of power owned by government is not reassuring. The concern is understandable because no one know how will the government control their power.
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THE CURRENT PUBLIC IDEA
(Continued from page 28) During the group conversation, I introduced the information about fast-grown government authorities. The participants were shocked because they had never heard these kinds of news before. Some of them still hold their initial ideas, but some of them change their mind. The people who keep their initial ideas thought the reason of the government pass more and more security laws is they seek for a complete solution to control the safety issues. One voice is, after September 11 attacks, the government found their loophole in security; for this reason, they are trying to fix these problem. During the process they will and have to make new laws and plan new projects, because the previous security system is not fit the current situation. The people who changed their mind have some concerns about the evil side of the government. For some point of view, they agreed the above ideas, the government needs new laws to fix the previous problem, but they worried about how will the government control their power. They gave a assuming to the conversation, if one day the government own the power to control everything, they can just arrest anyone who have a different voice from the government; and the government can randomly interrupt your ordinary life with just use “national security� as excuse for their mistake. 062
PUBLIC VOICE ON COMMUNICATION RIGHTS
THE CURRENT PUBLIC IDEA
ABOVE In the conversation group, one of the participants showed her concern on the government authority.
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PREVIOUS VOTE RESULT: 3 VOTES FREEDOM 4 VOTES NEUTRAL 4 VOTES SAFETY
AFTER CONVERSATION:
2 VOTES NEUTRAL
3 VOTES SAFETY
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6 VOTES FREEDOM
PUBLIC VOICE ON COMMUNICATION RIGHTS
THE CURRENT PUBLIC IDEA
“In a democracy, we need freedom and safety all assembly if it is not violent. The government has slowly taken away our rights. We need to stop this madness.” —Tim, one of the participants
Even most of them didn’t think the U.S. will go the extreme side on censorship problem, but they worried about the liberty in American would go worse. “In a democracy, we need freedom and safety all assembly if it is non-violent. The government has slowly taken away our rights. We need to stop this madness.” Tim, one of the participants said. The government just slowly enlarge their authorities without much notice of the public. When we realize that, it will be too late to give it back. For all of us, we need to be ready to fight for our rights. “Will you let the government take away you rights for their interest?”, I asked the participants at the end of the conversation. “Not at all”, that is the answer.
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THE CURRENT PUBLIC REACTION
Public Reaction to PATRIOT ACT. The U.S. PATRIOT Act. was passed for the counterterrorism after the September 11 attacks. Most public agree with this Act’s goal, but don’t like the means to achieving to that goal. Public said the PATRIOT Act is a attack on American civil liberties, and will leads a series of liberty issues. When this country was found, the founder granted to all the citizens that their rights will be protect by the states’ power, but now this commitment was facing challenge. In a poll of the public attitude to PATRIOT Act., 71 percent of 500 people respondents disapproved the section in this act that enabled government agencies to secretly search one’s home or their information and delay telling them. Many other sections on the PATRIOT Act have enlarge the government’s authorities to access to public’s private information. For example, the FBI is authorized to obtain someone’s personal records from business, hospital, and even libraries. And some other section just permitted federal agents to ask bank and finical institutions for suspected terrorists issues. Many of these section are thought to be dangerous to public rights, or for more specifically, their privacy right. After the PATRIOT passed, the mainly protests appeared to be the government’s overreaching power and overstepping of 066
PUBLIC VOICE ON COMMUNICATION RIGHTS
THE CURRENT PUBLIC REACTION
ABOVE A PATRIOT Act. protest.
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RIGHT A against PATRIOT Act. sign showed in the Occupy Wall Street protest. October 22, Seattle, WA.
boundaries. ACLU, a major opposite player to the government has sued the FBI for reasons that related to its infringements on public rights. With the time passed after PATRIOT Act. was written into law book, the opposition has grown larger and faster. News reports, TVs, editorials, blogs, and political cartoon have criticized the act for its attack on civil rights. Hundred cities are comply with federal authorities as long as this act don’t violate the public rights. Over years, several bills that have been proposed to amend the PATRIOT act never get passed.
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OPPOSITE UPPER The Prohibition Protest. OPPOSITE LOWER People celebrated the end of Prohibition.
Is The Government Restriction Always Right? History Give Us the Answer. Alcohol was once illegal in united states. One reason is the government thought alcohol had increased the domestic violence. But the fact is there was a dramatic rise in organized crime in the larger cities after the prohibition. Prohibition in the United States was a major reform movement sponsored by evangelical Protestant churches from the 1840s into the 1920s. Kansas and Maine were early adopters. By using pressure politics on legislators, the Anti-Saloon League achieved the goal of nationwide prohibition during World War I, emphasizing the need to destroy the political corruption of the saloons, the political power of the German-based brewing industry, and the need to reduce domestic violence in the home. Prohibition was instituted with ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on January 16, 1919. Although alcohol consumption did decline, there was a dramatic rise in organized crime in the larger cities, which now had a cash crop that was in high demand. Prohibition became increasingly unpopular during the Great Depression, as the repeal movement, led by conservative Democrats and Catholics, emphasized that repeal would generate enormous sums of much needed tax revenue, and 070
weaken the base of organized crime. The Repeal of Prohibition in the United States was accomplished with the passage of the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution on December 5, 1933. By its terms, states were allowed to set their own laws for the control of alcohol. The organized Prohibition movement was dead nationwide, but survived for a while in a few southern and border states. From the above story, we can find a point, the government’s restriction is not always right. Sometimes the government makes a new bill with good intent to prevent or reduce some crime actions, but the result doesn’t go to right way. It would produce more problem rather than solve it.
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THE COMPLAINTS ON GOVERNMENT CONDUCT
The Government is Overreaching to Our Private Communication. The government is reaching out its arms to pick up “useful” information in our communication. Your phone records, online search history, shared photos, the tags, and even your browse history can be their aim. In 21st century, the technology revolted the idea of communication. Mobile network and fast internet connection get us more possible on communication. The meaning of communication is beyond the text and sound. With the benefit the modern technology bring to us, the risk of our communication been monitored is increased. The government also use the technology to monitor our behavior. From some point, the technology make our communication easier, also the monitoring. Our information or communication can be easily record by techniques. The government do these monitoring for their interest, or “national security” as they said. But when this action happened on a ordinary people without any crime history, it is become unacceptable. Just image when you make a phone call, and a third person is hiding in the phone cable and listening to you phone talk. It did danger our rights on communication. Maybe someday, someone will be arrest by a unintentional sensitive 072
word, If we don’t react to this situation, this assuming will comes true. The reason we feel uncomfortable about the monitor is we don’t know the government’s next step and how will they control these information. Today the government is only hiding behind the phone or the computer, and they show up in front of your door in tomorrow. No one know what will happen next, all we can do is stop it as soon as possible.
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COMMUNICATION RIGHTS
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THE COMPLAINT ON GOVERNMENT CONDUCT
How Can We Do with Our Communication? Although we, the public, try our best to fight against the government’s restriction on online piracy, but something is already exist or is happening in the near future. This fact made us, the public feel helpless. Maybe in the near future, when we want to post some music or video clip on youtube, we might need to censor ourself first; maybe one day the government required your ISP to stop resolving domain name of your website because some one put some infringing content on it; maybe one day you found you are sued by some music company because you sing their song in you video... The above assuming sounds impossible, but it will actually happen if the laws I mention in this book get passed. The public always feel helpless is reasonable. When facing the government’s restriction, the public always be the weak side because they don’t know what they can do to. Most of the time, the public can only follow the direction the government give them, and have some reaction at very late time. It always too late to do reaction because the damage has been formed.
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Government Should be Responsible to Public’s Rights to Know “Right to know”, in the context of United States workplace and community environmental law, is the legal principle that the individual has the right to know the chemicals to which they may be exposed in their daily living. In here, the rights to know means the public’s right to know the government’s latest policies, plans and data. From the conversation group, interview and my research, I found a problem that the public didn’t know the government’s conduct very well. Most of them got these types of information from the civil society organizations instead of the government itself. It is a little ironic because the government always said their policies will be good for public’s interest but they always doesn’t promote them very well. One of the reasons is some of the policies is very sensitive. The government doesn’t want to talk about it to the public because they afraid of the uncontrollable reaction. These resist activities will block the bills get passed. And sometimes the government just don’t realized that they have to promote the new policies. For the first reason, the government’s reaction is really dangerous. If they are planing a sensitive bill or plan but don’t let the public know, It might cause a much bigger rebound. In this way, 076
the reaction of the public will be quite if they don’t know, or a intense reaction after it causes an uproar. Whatever the government’s idea is, the public always feel angry when they found they had been told lately. The government should be more responsible. The government shows they have much more responsible on making new bills and policies. In these years, The government have made so many new laws, but the opposite is the public didn’t know much of them. That reason cause the public’s complain on government’s responsibility. If the government pay their responsible on make new laws, they should also pay the equal responsible on promote them. Only in this way, the government do the right response on public’s rights to know.
YOUR RIGHTS TO KNOW 077
Government Spent Too Much On Security By 2008, America’s spending on counterterrorism outpaced all anti-crime spending by some $15 billion. This number did not even include things like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The question is, did American spent too much on the counterterrorism? There is a section—an attempt to explain why America spent all that money—particularly interesting: “A most common misjudgment has been to embrace extreme events as harbingers presaging a dire departure from historical patterns. In the months and then years after 9/11, as noted at the outset, it was almost universally assumed that the terrorist event was a harbinger rather than an aberration. There were similar reactions to Timothy McVeigh’s 1995 truck bomb attack in Oklahoma City as concerns about a repetition soared. And in 1996, shortly after the terrorist group Aum Shinrikyo set off deadly gas in a Tokyo subway station, one of terrorism studies’ top gurus, Walter Laqueur, assured the world that some terrorist groups “almost certainly” will use weapons of mass destruction “in the foreseeable future.” Presumably any future foreseeable in 1996 is now history, and Laqueur’s near “certainty” has yet to occur.” In other words, we’re probably overestimating the likelihood of another 9/11. Sure, smaller-scale attacks are probably more common, but it is almost impossible to prevent this type of attack
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with traditional security measure. Even if increased security could prevent attacks on high-value targets like the Twin Towers, it would run the risk of simply pushing terrorists to attack softer targets. So, spend bunches of money won’t change the security situation too much. The question is, is it worth to do that for the no so obvious security case.
PUBLIC VOICE ON COMMUNICATION RIGHTS
THE COMPLAINT ON GOVERNMENT CONDUCT
ABOVE NSA’s 1.5 billion super-computing center will be built in Utah.
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2001 AMOUNT
290.5 BILLION PENTAGON BASE BUDGET
16 BILLION HOMELAND SECURITY
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2011 AMOUNT
526.1 BILLION PENTAGON BASE BUDGET
69.1 BILLION HOMELAND SECURITY
Source: www.defense.gov 081
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PUBLIC VOICE ON COMMUNICATION RIGHTS
Government Slowly Take Away Our Rights Which is more important? Government responsibilities or public rights? This question seems not answer, but what I know is most of the public can sacrifice part of their rights for the government responsibilities. The public’s idea to exchange part of their right for the society comes from their responsibility. They hope the society can be a better if the government can use public rights in right place. For this point, the public will say “yes” to government take away their rights.
THE COMPLAINT ON GOVERNMENT CONDUCT
Whatever the government try to do, it will make the public angry and lost the trust from people. The problem is, the public lacks the power to effect the government, and the government can’t hear our voice. If the government can’t hear the voice from the public, it will cause a series problem. The government would keep their mistake and intensify the contradiction with public.
If the government take public rights more than they really need, the situation will be totally different. In public’s point of view, if the government take away too much public rights, it is not for the society, it is for the government’s interest. Now in the U.S., the public is starting concern about this problem. The PATRIOT Act., the health care reform, the full body scanners in airport are the example. The government do need changes on this case, but they did too much hard work and cross the public’s bottom line. The government seems notice these problem, but they don’t solve them, they just slow down their speed and hope it will reduce the chance that the public will notice the change.
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TRANSPARENCY PROBLEM Government spend too much on homeland security, but the public doesn’t see where is the money going.
AUDIENCE The American Taxpayers
SOLUTION A user-friendly and graphic style website helps the taxpayer tracking their money.
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TOOL KIT PROBLEM Public is going to facing the more and more serious surveillance and private data issues.
AUDIENCE The American who concern about their privacy.
SOLUTION A deliverable tool-kit help the public to solve their privacy issue. The tool-kit contents encryption device, software and guidebook. Use graphic design skill to simplify the operation, and reduce the chance to make wrong operation.
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CAMPAIGN PROBLEM The voice of public is not strong enough to cause the government’s attention.
AUDIENCE The American people.
SOLUTION A series poster, website and visual system for the campaign. In addition to the traditional approaches, using the influence of social network and viral marketing to catch more attention.
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4 OUR COMMUNICATION RIGHTS IN THE FUTURE From the above chapters, we can see the conflicts between public and government is caused by interests in both sides. From the public’s point, they think the government own too much authority and threats to their ordinary life; from the government’s point, this country seeks for security after September 11 attacks. Both public and government have acceptable reasons to maintain their interest. So, what can we learn from this case, and what can we do?
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PROTECT OUR COMMUNICATION RIGHTS
We Must Protect Our Communication Rights Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. In the 21st century, with the develop of technology, it has more ways to make a communication. You can use internet, mobile devices, social network and streaming media to make a communication. The government is also notice the property of the modern communication technology. But in their mind, these technology will cause a lot of issues, especially the security issues. So the government is take some actions to restrict our communication rights. For most of the case, the government is try to collect the information in your communication, or limit your communication for their own interest. All of these actions threat our communications right. If we don’t care about this issue, the government will take away our communication rights. The government always take away our right slowly without much notice. When we notice that , it will be too late to take it back. If we don’t make reaction immediately, one of our rights will lost. The public need to go together to make a campaign. Only when we put enough pressure on government, their will heard and pay attention our concern. I hope this book can help us go together to fight for our communication right. 092
OUR COMMUNICATION IN THE FUTURE
PROTECT OUR COMMUNICATION RIGHTS
“When the Government violates the Constitution, it is the duty of the People to rise up against the Government to bring the Government into compliance with the Constitution.” —Anonymous
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REDUCE THE CONFLICTS BETWEEN PUBLIC AND GOVERNMENT
Both the public and the government spend countless hours and millions of money every year on complaints, objections and appeal procedures against government decisions. Usually, the public doesn’t agree with the government decision, discover mistakes, or doesn’t understand the decision. Most of this problem is caused by lack of communication. Before the government make decision, they don’t really understand the public’s concerns; during the phase of the decision making, the government don’t do enough test on the public’s concern, and it will lead a incorrect and incomplete result. From the public’s point of view, it is difficult to find a simple way to talk to the government, and the government’s decision report is so complex and hard to understand. All these above reasons cause the poor communication between government and public. To solve the communication problem, some new approaches for public and government can bring some changes. 1. Before making decision, the government need to find out the real needs of the public. They should contact the public directly to know their needs. A right direction of the decision can effective reduce the complaints from public. 2. During the preliminary phase of the decision making that has consequences for certain person. The government should test and listen to the public’s reaction. 3. The government need a plan to response the public
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voice after the decision is made. Government should contact to public directly to hear their concerns, and need a program to refine the exist decisions. The communication between public and government need to be improved. The current situation is as good as we want. The longer this situation persists, the worse the damage would be made. A effective solution is imminent.
OUR COMMUNICATION IN THE FUTURE
REDUCE THE CONFLICTS BETWEEN PUBLIC AND GOVERNMENT
BETTER COMMUNICATION 095
COMMUNICATION PROBLEM Public and government lack of communication, this issue leads to more conflicts.
AUDIENCE The American people.
SOLUTION A smart phone app for the communication between public and government. Public can use this app to sent their concerns to government; the government can use this app to response public and promote government’s new decision.
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CONTROL THE BALANCE BETWEEN RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITY
The Balance Between Public Rights and Government Responsibility After I take a complete view of this communication rights topic, it is time to back to the very beginning question: Is there a balance between public rights and government responsibility? I think the answer is “yes”. The balance is the public’s social responsibility. Like most people said, They can sacrifice part of their rights for other’s safety. It is because they have their own responsibility as a member of this society. They know what should they have to do for good. They know the benefit of society sometime is higher than personal interest, that is the reason they can sacrifice something. In the best situation, the public’s social responsibility gives the space of the government’s authority. If the government can control its power in the similar range of public’s responsibility, there will be a best balance. If the government’s authority is less than the public’s social responsibility, the public will complains the government do nothing. It’s because the public get government the authority to benefit the society but the government doesn’t work hard and give up part of the authority. On the opposite side, if the government do more than the public’s social responsibility, 098
the public will complain the government over their bottom line. Because the government’s conducts over the limit that the public give them. That is why I said the public’s social responsibility is the index of balance between public rights and government responsibility. Public’s social responsibility give the government the space to govern the society, it also limits the power of the government. If the public and government can handle it well, the conflicts between them will be mush less.
OUR COMMUNICATION IN THE FUTURE
CONTROL THE BALANCE BETWEEN RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITY
RIGHTS VS RESPONSIBILITY
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THANK YOU
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FIGHT FOR OUR RIGHTS
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