O O Ø O O O O
No, Virginia.
Rights don’t exist.
It’s not really fair to simply declare, as I did last week, that “there’s no such thing as rights”. For instance, if two people agree that each has the right to own and enjoy property, and both people actually respect that right, then the right truly exists between those two people. Okay.
But if one of these two decides not to recognize the right of the other, and proceeds to trespass, steal, damage, spit upon, or otherwise infringe on what was previously explicitly or implicitly agreed, then does that right still exist? Was it there in the first place? Did it do anyone any good?
A Right: an obligation on an individual or a group of individuals to grant a consideration to others.
For a right to exist people must be willing and capable of providing the conditions for that right to be meaningful. This usually implies that individuals and groups of individuals must continually provide such niceties as respect for property or guarantees of employment, even if they don’t want to. If you actually have a right to a job, then someone has a corresponding obligation to provide you with that job, like it or not. That just doesn’t make sense.
This table shows some popular alleged rights, and my translation of each.
The Alleged Right |
Really Means |
The Right to a Good Job. |
Someone must provide a job to the person claiming this right. The obligation is on people to grant this consideration regardless of whether they want to or not. |
|
The Right to a Decent Education. |
People, or organizations acting as people’s agents, must provide you the opportunity to be educated. |
|
The Right to Life. |
Everyone around you must allow you to live. |
|
The Right to Privacy. |
In a digital, interconnected world, that means everyone, everywhere, has to refrain from intruding on your interpretation of privacy. What does this mean for different cultures? What does this mean in different media? |
By now you get my point. I don’t actually think there’s anything wrong with believing that people should allow you to live. I am also very pro-education and pro-employment, but I just can’t believe that relying on your alleged rights to get you these things is such a good idea.
For instance...
If an individual disrespects your Right to Life, where does that leave you? Soundly dead, and with little recourse. The fact that most individuals respect that right, and may take up the torch and persecute the perpetrator, is probably of little solace to you. (This argument, several ideas here, and myself personally owe a debt to Harry Browne’s How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World
It would be easy to go off the deep end arguing like this. I’m not suggesting everyone wear Kevlar long johns under their Gap khakis, and before you accuse me of proposing anarchy, please see my own rebuttal later on this page.
Now let’s look more carefully at the Right to Privacy and how it applies to Information Security. I see two possible manners in which you can pursue your privacy.
- Depend on your rights, and expect everyone, everywhere to leave your information well enough alone. When this turns out not to be the case, get on your pulpit and wax eloquent about your tattered rights.
- Don’t count on anyone granting you anything, and take prudent precautionary measures against having your privacy violated.
Last week I demonstrated how I felt my so called Right to Privacy was transgressed in the course of a police inspector doing his job. I had certain information, my fingerprints, which I was interested in keeping secret. This is of no concern to The City of Calgary Police Service, and so for them, it is not a right worth preserving. This is the same for many, many potential situations. I am interested in keeping my genetic information private, but there are organizations who want to create genetic records for health care and crime prevention reasons. I want to keep my financial information private, but there are credit rating institutions that are more interested in protecting creditors. In all cases my rights are protected only so far as these organizations are willing to grant me that protection.
My alternative is to keep as much of my information as private as possible, and to put safeguards in place to keep it so. I don’t throw out old utility bills, I never give out my Social Insurance Number, I never tell the census people my religion. I’m vigilant, and have grown accustomed to being so, because defending my alleged Right to Privacy (keeping my personal information private), is going to get a lot harder in the future.
Addendum: Probably Not a Bad Idea
One of my colleagues would be quick to point out that we all rely quite heavily on our rights, particularly the Right to Life. The fact that almost all individuals respect these sorts of “inalienable human rights” has obvious benefits, in terms of efficiency, productivity, and all round decency.
From the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
The General Assembly, Proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.
And as everyone knows, we live in a universally perfect world.
Evan Spence
Friday, August 14, 1998