Threat to Internet Privacy

Threat to Internet Privacy

Abstract

At what level is Internet surveillance by the United States government acceptable to society, considering a balance between security and privacy, what are the short and long term implications, and how does it affect the rest of the world.

Introduction

Privacy from governments has been under assault increasing amounts in the last 100 years. Technology has revolutionized the concept, as before we had microphones, telephones, wiretaps, video cameras, someone would actually need to trespass to violate your privacy. For example, you would need to actually be in someone?s house to eavesdrop on his or her conversation without technological help[1]. Privacy protection can be looked at as how far society can intrude into a person?s personal affairs.

Technological advances create the capability more and more to snoop or invade privacy without detection. Granted, letters have always been opened and conversations overheard, but with technology, the potential for privacy has diminished. When we are sitting in our living room, our cell phone can give away our location; video cameras can be recording our actions through the windows; and remote microphones can be recording our conversation. Before computers and the Internet, you could gather sensitive information on someone, but the ability to divulge massive amounts of information on a large number of people was beyond possible due to the massive manual labor involved. Computers change this limitation, as computers have the potential to process enormous volumes of information.

Computers can also tie information together in an impersonal and systematic way that can lead to invasions of privacy. Take for example the situation wh...

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