Ethics Newsline®

Several readers wrote in reaction to Rushworth Kidder’s commentary last week about how the new digital information infrastructure was confounding attempts by the repressive government of Myanmar, formerly Burma, to keep secret its brutal suppression of dissent. One reader drew a parallel between the commentary and the article that followed — about rights in the United States and the balance of constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure and security concerns addressed by the Patriot Act:

The astonishing care and concern for adherence to our Constitution stands out as a hallmark of our society. Few nations if any transcend us in the time and effort spent on such deliberations. And Burma is certainly not one of those.
But the due deliberation we employ must also be accompanied by a careful consideration of how we apply our Constitution in light of our advanced society —

a society that could not have been forecast in 1776. The threats we face today are unparalleled in recent history….
If we are unable to update our national understanding of [the Fourth Amendment], if we are unable to fold such updated understanding into the fabric of our decision making, then our national decision process will find us slowly losing our grasp on our freedoms….
We could indeed be doomed to a Machiavellian decline from our democratic “form” of government, to the rancorous displays now beginning to be apparent in our leadership which could lead to anarchy, then to become the “spoils of the victor” which could have us looking like present day Burma: Tyranny!
But, of course, that could never happen here, could it?

–J. Peter Rushworth
Roswell, Georgia

Another reader compared the situation in Myanmar with the changing information landscape of the 1980s:

I have for some time held the view that the most important factor behind the downfall of the former Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc was the free flow of information, not all the arms races and saber rattling that took place as part of the Cold War. It was not communism per se that fell, it was the totalitarianism that was exercised, including the control of information, that could no longer succeed. At one time, controlling the flow of information was possible, at least for a considerable length of time. It no longer is. Perhaps the most effective ”weapon” of the twentieth century is the transistor, not the bomb! History will be the judge.

– Bruce Balfe
Valparaiso, Indiana