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Privacy and surveillance issues
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Surveillance is the monitoring of the behaviour, activities, or other changing information, usually of people for the purpose of influencing, managing, directing or protecting them. The right of human beings basically entails freedom to basic things of life, part of which includes freedom to life, speech, vote and movement, all which are known as fundamental human rights. But with the advents of technology and the growth in the society, these have led to the development of satellite cables, which are used to monitor events at certain places with or without the knowledge of the residual/residents. Thus, the use of satellite cables has made the world a global village. The use of electronic surveillance in the environment was basically to provide security and safety in the environment, which was used to monitor the rate of crime and other social vices in the world, providing global security to the world, and such information on security spreads faster at a snap on the Internet. But today the electronic surveillances are being used to bridge human rights and freedom, this involves the u...
Penenberg closes his essay by mentioning that the surveillance is not only used to watch the citizens but also for citizens to keep an eye on the government. Through his organization, relevant information, and professional tone, Penenberg creates an effective
The pros of electronic surveillance are extensive. The ability for agents of the United States Intelligence Community (IC) to intercept and process communications and information from foreign powers, agents of foreign powers, international terrorist organizations, and others who seek to engage in activities with such groups, provides the ...
“With surveillance technology like closed-circuit television cameras and digital cameras now linked to the Internet, we now have the means to implement Bentham's inspection principle on a much vaster scale”(Singer) Bentham's inspection principle is a system that allows the collection, storing and dissemination of data on individuals, corporations, and the government. This collection of data has large implications in regard to privacy and security. “There is always danger that the information collected will be misused - whether by regimes seeking to silence opposition or by corporations seeking to profit from more detailed knowledge of their potential customers.”(Singer) What is done with the information collected is the main issue in terms of privacy. We do not want to be marketed to, or inundated with spam from third-party sources. We also do not want our private social circles and experiences to appear that they are being monetized or subjected to surveillance outside our control. In addition, surveillance has a large effect on the government that can beneficial or detrimental to democracy. Exposure of government secrets may make officials tread carefully when making decisions, ensuring that politicians are nothing but just and fair.“The crucial step in preventing a repressive government from
“There are about 3 billion phone calls made within the USA every day” (Romano). Now picture you’re calling your friend on the phone. Sometimes we can take small privilege like this for granted. Now imagine that the government is listening to every single phone conversation that we make. Why wouldn’t this scare you? I know it terrifies me. Wiretaps are a problem that concerns every single person in the country. But it isn’t just wiretaps; with a program called Prism the NSA has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple, and other US internet giants (Glenn). Everything we search for on Google, every message sent or received on Facebook, every item purchased on Apple is all seen by the NSA. The government is overusing their power to spy on its citizens and it needs to stop.
One of the sources used to disprove that body camera isn’t the answer includes Jamelle Bouie article, Keeping the Police honest. Mr. Bouie is the chief political correspondent at Slate who graduated from the University of Virginia with a political and social thought degree (Tumblr.com). His work consists of issues relating to national politics, public policies and racial inequality. His work has also been published in Slate online magazine, the New Yorker, the Washington Post and TIME Magazine (Tumblr.com). Slate is an online magazine that post about the news, politics, business, technology and culture (slate.com). In Jamelle article, Keeping the Police honest he talks about incidents where police officers were being recorded and took excessive
Moving away from Foucault and Bentham, David Lyon has made a quest for other surveillance theories. He writes, “It seems clear that some constructive contributions to surveillance theory are needed. Surveillance theory cannot ignore the panopticon but it can surely move beyond it” (12). The direction as to where to turn is still an ongoing debate. Some have not strayed far and have turned to Foucault’s governmentality, others have turned to an Orwellian model, Deleuze, Baudrillard, Zizek, Arendt and Kant to name a few. This paper will turn to Henri Lefebvre and his book Production of Space as Lefebvre has become in vogue in surveillance theory and later in this paper will be useful in discussing helicopters and how occupy Mike Davis’s idea of Los Angeles creation of a ‘defensible space’.
Zetter, Kim. "World’s Top Surveillance Societies — Updated with Link." Editorial. Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, 31 Dec. 2007. Web. 08 Feb. 2014.
One of the big advantages of using technology in monitoring people lives, is keeping them safe and secured. While some people argue that it’s not the governments right to interfere in their privacy, they will appreciate the government act when the walk in the middle of the night, knowing that they
With today’s technological surveillance capabilities, our actions are observable, recordable and traceable. Surveillance is more intrusive than it has been in the past. For numerous years countries such as the United State and the United Kingdom have been actively monitoring their citizens through the use of surveillance technology. This state surveillance has been increasing with each passing year, consequently invading the citizen’s fundamental constitutional right to privacy,. This has lead to the ethical issues from the use or misuse of technology, one such ethical issue is should a government have the right to use technology to monitor its citizens without their knowledge or approval? For this reason this paper will examine what the terms ethics, ethical issue and state surveillance refer to. Next, an exploration into the ethics of governmental monitoring from the perspective of a variety of ethical systems such as: ethical formalism, act utilitarian, rule utilitarian and subjective relativism model. From this examination of state surveillance through ethical syste...
Current advancements in technology has given the government more tools for surveillance and thus leads to growing concerns for privacy. The two main categories of surveillance technologies are the ones that allow the government to gather information where previously unavailable or harder to obtain, and the ones that allow the government to process public information more quickly and efficiently (Simmons, 2007). The first category includes technologies like eavesdropping devices and hidden cameras. These are clear offenders of privacy because they are capable of gathering information while being largely unnoticed. The second category would include technologies that are used in a public space, like cameras in a public park. While these devices
Many people live in fear that they are constantly being watched. Michael Jackson sang it best in the 80 's by saying, "I always feel like, somebody 's watching me," in his hit song with Rockwell. That 's exactly what the NSA and other government organizations are doing today with domestic surveillance. Everywhere Americans go and every corner they turn there is a camera, and every website or email they send is being monitored closely. So what can society do about this? Educate others on the situation and stand up for what is right. Some people believe they must give up some freedoms for protection, but at what cost? What is happening in America is not what the founding fathers fought for. Domestic surveillance should not be allowed because
People are exposed severally on the government gallery, and they are little things they can always do to protect them from such. Unregulated surveillance could in a greater manner strip individuals of their privacy rights, and by addition, restrict coming together of people, organizations and in such a comprehensive way that could vindicate us back to the most grievous errors in history swinging back to the present day (Boghosian 89). People, non-governmental institutions are living under such oppressive realms but cannot clearly articulate their concerns and issues that affect the society for fear of state cameras (Song
Should the government spy on its Allies? This is a big question. In my opinion, no they should not spy on them. If you are allies you should be able to trust them or you simply shouldn’t be alliance with them. Canada is allies with Germany, Britain, France, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, to name a few. So if we don't believe in something that one of our allies is doing , then we cut our alliance with them. For Example Canada is no longer allies with Iran because “Harper's government’s…[believes]Iran poses the greatest threat to international peace and security.” We, broke our Alliance with Iran because we as a Country don’t believe in Nuclear threats, and Iran does. So because we don’t share the same belief system,
In the modern day era, we find in society a ubiquitous usage of technology that seems to be never ending and forever growing. Included with this notion, the broad subject of surveillance is of course included. Contemporary surveillance, or more specifically technological surveillance, has been described as ambiguous; meaning that it is often misunderstood or open to different interpretations. The representation of surveillance within popular culture has played an impacting role on how we as a society perceive it and this raises certain questions that may reflect back on to society. The 1998 film Enemy Of The State directed by Tony Scott, Starring Will Smith, Gene Hackman and Jon Voight is considered to be a ‘spy-thriller’ blockbuster. Its central themes explore a range of surveillance techniques and equipment and also provides some insights, no matter how realistic or unrealistic they may be, into the real life security organisation; The National Security Agency (NSA). Using this film as an example and analysing how these themes are represented will hopefully allow us to key these ideas back to modern surveillance theories and practices.
Privacy is not just a fundamental right, it is also important to maintain a truly democratic society where all citizens are able to exist with relative comfort. Therefore, “[Monitoring citizens without their knowledge] is a major threat to democracies all around the world.” (William Binney.) This is a logical opinion because without freedom of expression and privacy, every dictatorship in history has implemented some form of surveillance upon its citizens as a method of control.