Is Personal Privacy Dead?

Have you ever felt violated? Like somebody knew too much about you that they didn’t need to know? Or have you ever felt like someone was watching you? As if somebody knew your every move? Most people don’t normally feel this way; most people feel safe in their general surroundings. Although with the constant use of technology in today’s era, it’s time to ask: Should we, as American citizens, feel as safe as we do?

Personal privacy is such a simple phrase for such a complex idea. The definition given in the Merriam-Webster’s dictionary of privacy is, “the quality or state of being apart from company or observation.” And “personal” meaning, “Relating to the person or body.” In other words: setting oneself apart from the observation or company of others. It seems simple; if someone wanted to be in private, they should be able to, right? Wrong. In today’s time, it is almost impossible to be in complete privacy, with the increasing use of technology and the naïve minds operating it, complete personal privacy is a hard thing to come by. It all starts with a couple of harmless mouse clicks, but in a matter of seconds you could be sending out information to anyone all over the world, whether you know about it or not.

Years ago, personal privacy was actually quite common. People could do and say things without everybody knowing, and it seemed like most people weren’t worried about others. It was rare to hear about people feeling unsafe while using the computer or on the phone (when they had them). It was also unusual to hear of someone complaining of feeling as if they did not have enough privacy twenty years ago (although whether or not that is caused by lack of communication or lack of crime, it cannot be certain). There was never an...

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...onal privacy dead?” brings up many other questions along with it. But there is no doubt that the government is doing all of what they are doing for safety reasons. They claim to want to make the United States as safe as possible, and this has proved to ring true in many situations. But now the inevitable new question becomes: How far is too far? Is safety more important than privacy? To know these answers, one must ask themselves and know their own opinion on the situation. But whatever their answers may be, and despite the multiple other questions that are brought up along with the topic of personal privacy, there is still one thing that is known for sure: personal privacy is dead. And unless the use of technology becomes less critical to the United States, personal privacy will always be dead. The bigger the role technology has; the less personal privacy there is.