I think we must all agree that national governments have a duty of care towards their citizens.
From the Indian govt perspective, the dominance of the Internet by foreign owned businesses means that the country is vulnerable to malfeasance should those foreign governments mean India harm or come to decide - over the head of the government - what the Indian people want or need.
This is about national sovereignty and national security. We have seen how those values trump privacy concerns for individuals in any country, including the US, so must accord the same understanding for other nations also.
This government's police agencies have used Israeli spyware to plant incriminating evidence on journalists and activists. "National security" has come to mean "anything critical of the government".
Loose terms like "national security" are like good times that breed weak leaders. I think we must all agree that citizens have a right against persecution.
What track record does this government have that suggests they will do no wrong with their internet history logs?
"National security" has come to mean "anything critical of the government".
Yes this is true!
Hence government needs to invest in indoctrination in order to better convince the people of the justness of their actions. Singing the national anthem, waving the flag, inventing enemies without and within - it's pretty easy to build the 'cognitive infrastructure' required to carry the day
I agree that most western democratic nations are a very bad example when it comes to defending their own values. But government should simply not have the ability to monitor citizen communication. It was a problem in the past and it should not be a problem in the future.
the use case most commonly cited by government(s) is national security.
for example, the government might suspect a citizen to be an agent of the CCP. Would you defend that individuals right to privacy, vs the nations right to security?
So rather than blanket surveillance, wouldn't it make more sense for the government to build a case against a suspect, and then issue a warrant to track their behaviour etc?
Unless the assumption is that all citizens of a country are potentially enemies of the state and we are all highly trained spies operating under deep cover for years...
the question would be 'building a case' - how would do you this if you didn't conduct some sort of profiling? The entire purpose of national security apparatus is to identify enemies of the state before they are able to act. Do you think this is always unjustified? Genuine question, don't know the answer myself!
From the Indian govt perspective, the dominance of the Internet by foreign owned businesses means that the country is vulnerable to malfeasance should those foreign governments mean India harm or come to decide - over the head of the government - what the Indian people want or need.
This is about national sovereignty and national security. We have seen how those values trump privacy concerns for individuals in any country, including the US, so must accord the same understanding for other nations also.