Taking Action to Kokua Kauai
Freedom for Security?
Anyone who read the Garden Island’s two-part series on teen drug use could not help but feel tremendous sadness and compassion for the Matthews family. Most of us cannot even imagine the weight of such a loss.
Yet this should not stop us from forming a critical analysis of the information in the articles, particularly since media attention to issues is often the pre-curser to the formation of public policy.
What, exactly, did we learn from these articles? That youthful drug experimentation has been, and continues to be, at a relatively steady level, with no significant changes? That occasionally drug use has terrible consequences?
Or more ominously: that we should increase our surveillance in all areas, including spying on young people?
I worry that an acceptance of greater measures of surveillance and privacy-invasion within our own homes paves the way for an acceptance of privacy-invasion in society as a whole. We have been witnessing this trend gathering momentum and force over the last several years.
First, we are presented with news of a terrifying “crisis.” Then we are convinced that we should relax our commitment to civil liberties to combat it. A recent example of this was the urgent push to impose drug-testing on public school teachers after a small handful of teachers were caught with drugs.
Benjamin Franklin once said, “Those who would trade freedom for security deserve neither.”
Yet this should not stop us from forming a critical analysis of the information in the articles, particularly since media attention to issues is often the pre-curser to the formation of public policy.
What, exactly, did we learn from these articles? That youthful drug experimentation has been, and continues to be, at a relatively steady level, with no significant changes? That occasionally drug use has terrible consequences?
Or more ominously: that we should increase our surveillance in all areas, including spying on young people?
I worry that an acceptance of greater measures of surveillance and privacy-invasion within our own homes paves the way for an acceptance of privacy-invasion in society as a whole. We have been witnessing this trend gathering momentum and force over the last several years.
First, we are presented with news of a terrifying “crisis.” Then we are convinced that we should relax our commitment to civil liberties to combat it. A recent example of this was the urgent push to impose drug-testing on public school teachers after a small handful of teachers were caught with drugs.
Benjamin Franklin once said, “Those who would trade freedom for security deserve neither.”
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