It’s obvious that libertarian and an-cap takes a strong stance on individual right and individual liberty. Surveillance could lead and has lead to people getting prosecuted for and by for things that they were said to have about to have done. It has lead to people getting prosecuted and their homes broken in in history and their belongings confiscated. It has lead to people getting put on lists by governments and private companies. It has lead to the state executive to evoke broader wiretaps and restricted people’s freedom.
I ask because the libertarian or the an-cap philosophy believes in natural rights. It doesn’t believe that the state has the power to take away rights and that certain rights are negative, that they’re there. A right to privacy is essential for a free society. People have a right to do as they please as long as they’re not harming anyone. The right to privacy should therefore be a sacred right in such a society that values freedom. I want to know what libertarian or an-cap views on surveillance are.
Is it okay if it’s voluntary? If between the two agreeing parties one party who agreed to it is okay with it-- so the act is fine? But it’s not okay when the party doesn’t know that they’re being monitored-- that’s not okay as that would be force… but with the other one it would not be force and they would know about it.
I’m personally against surveillance of which the subject is completely innocent and hasn’t done anything wrong, or, for purely political purposes, or just for the sake of surveillance. If someone has a shady background-- maybe that’s okay. If they’re associated with terrorist groups the police has to get a warrant first and they have to prove that they have evidence that the suspect is a terrorist before doing anything. But aside from that the right to privacy is essential… and I just want to know what the majority consensus on this is.
What you have is a right to just property. As such, you can use that property to increase your privacy.
“It might, however, be charged that Smith does not have the right to print such a statement, because Jones has a “right to privacy” (his “human” right) which Smith does not have the right to violate. But is there really such a right to privacy? How can there be? How can there be a right to prevent Smith y force from disseminating knowledge which he possesses? Surely there can be no such right. Smith owns his own body and therefore has the property right to own the knowledge he has inside his head, including his knowledge about Jones. And therefore he has the corollary right to print and disseminate that knowledge. In short, as in the case of the “human right” to free speech, there is no such thing as a right to privacy except the right to protect one’s property from invasion. The only right “to privacy” is the right to protect one’s property from being invaded by someone else. In brief, no one has the right to burgle someone else’s home, or to wiretap someone’s phone lines. Wiretapping is properly a crime not because of some vague and woolly “invasion of a ‘right to privacy’,” but because it is an invasion of the property right of the person being wiretapped.”
Don’t like the fact you don’t have much privacy from your neighbors? Plant a tall hedge / tree, get curtains, build a wall, whatever.
Coercive - completely illegitimate, wiretapping, etc. (Physical aggression) The current measures (cameras on public streets, roads) are all illegitimate because they are funded by theft.
Voluntary - fine (shop keepers etc). You don’t own your reputation. Being filmed does not constitute a physical invasion.
That said it would be up to the property owner, if they install cameras or not. In a free Libertarian society, I believe there would be less surveillance / police state measures, since individual self defense would be permissible and essentially, everywhere. i.e no monopoly on violence / protection services.
Agreed - in a society where all rights are property based, there is no right to privacy. It isn’t as though I can make people wear blinders when walking past my yard.
Consequently, if I have a camera fixed in such a way to record into my hot neighbor’s bedroom window, and sell access to my server over the Internet, then the only thing she can do is put up curtains.