Privacy Is Not Privlege

773 Words2 Pages

How much privacy do we as the American people truly have? American Privacy is not directly guaranteed in any manner under the United States Constitution; however, by the Fourth Amendment, Americans are protected from illegal search and seizure. So then isn’t it ironic that in today’s modern world, nothing we do that it is in any way connected to the internet is guaranteed to remain discreet? A Google search, an email, a text message, or even a phone call are all at risk of being intercepted, traced, geo located, documented, and stored freely by the government under the guise of “protecting” the American people. Quite simply, the Government in order to protect us and our rights, is willing to make a hypocrite of itself and act as though our right is simply a privilege, and without any form of consent from the people, keep virtual tabs on each and every one of us. In the words of Former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis “The right to privacy is a person's right to be left alone by the government... the right most valued by civilized men." Privacy isn’t just Privilege, it is nonnegotiable right, and deserves to be treated as such.
With the introduction of the internet being a relatively new phenomenon, the act of cyber espionage is not something that has been properly acknowledged by society. The American Government has done a stand up job of keeping its methods in the shadows and away from the eyes of its people since its documented domestic surveillance began on October 4th, 2001; Twenty three days after the Twin Towers fell President George Bush signed an order to begin a secret domestic eavesdropping operation, an operation which was so sensitive that even many of the country's senior national security officials with the...

... middle of paper ...

...ots and in effect saved a great many lives, however Edward Snowden has stated that “Bathtub falls and police officers kill more Americans than terrorism, yet we've been asked to sacrifice our most sacred rights for fear of falling victim to it.” We are in more danger of death by falling out of our bathtubs of being killed by the people who “protect” us than we are by being killed by a terrorist, and yet our government would ignore that, and use terrorism as a false pretense to freelance monitor its people.
The greatest irony of all lies in one word “protection”, the police are meant to protect us and yet it is more likely that we should be killed by one of them than it is we be killed by a terrorist, and the government who protects us by spying on us. Our privacy is our right, not our privilege, and the government should not protect our rights, by violating them.

Open Document