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Government surveillance and privacy issues
Government surveillance and privacy issues
Government surveillance and privacy issues
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Brenna Machek
Birch Moonwomon
English 101.18
Rhetorical Analysis
The word “privacy” has a different meaning in our society than it did in previous times. You can put on Privacy settings on Facebook, twitter, or any social media sights, however, nothing is truly personal and without others being able to view your information. You can get to know a person’s personal life simply by typing in their name in google. In the chronicle review, “Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have ‘Nothing to Hide,'" published on May 15th 2011, Professor Daniel J. Solove argues that the issue of privacy affects more than just individuals hiding a wrong. The nothing-to-hide argument pervades discussions about privacy. Solove starts talking about this argument right away in the article and discusses how the nothing-to-hide
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argument is everywhere. In the article Solove discusses how the government focuses on the use of personal data collected rather than the problems of how the information is stored and processed.
He argues that it seems easy to dismiss the nothing-to-hide argument, however, everyone has something or other to hide from somebody. A man named Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn stated that “everyone is guilty of something or has something to conceal. All one has to do is look hard enough to find what it is” (Solove Paragraph 8). The nothing-to-hide argument refers not to all personal information but only to the type of data the government is likely to collect. Solove states that if we have nothing to hide, we are basically letting the government take naked photographs of us and sharing it with friends, neighbors, and strangers. The government has the ability to take little unobtrusive acts of our lives and bring the data together to form assumptions and conclusions. Those assumptions can be thrown out of context and we have no way of correcting the misconceptions. Solove declares that although you say you have nothing to hide, “The government can harm inadvertently, due to errors or
carelessness.” This article is an excerpt from Daniel J. Solove’s new book, Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff Between Privacy and Security. Solove is a professor of law at George Washington University. This article was published the month of May in the year 2011 by Yale University Press. In this article, he helps to discredit each claim made about the government gathering information and surveillance on our people of society and having it be overlooked. The article is focused a lot on creating an ethical view point to the argument. He is trying to grasp the readers attention and let them see his clear point and reinforce his authority to his readers. When Solove uses the third person and first person interchangeably it shows a sense of relationship between the readers and himself. He wants the readers to feel a connection with his writing and feel as if they have a say in the argument. However, using the third person, it still shows his superior and his side of the argument.
“The standards of what we want to keep private and what we make public are constantly evolving. Over the course of Western history, we’ve developed a desire for more privacy, quite possibly as a status symbol…”(Singer) Technological change leads to new abuses, creating new challenges to security, but society adapts to those challenges. To meet the innate need for privacy, we learn what to reveal and where, and how to keep secret what we don't want to disclose. “Whether Facebook and similar sites are reflecting a change in social norms about privacy or are actually driving that change, that half a billion people are now on Facebook suggests that people believe the benefits of connecting with others, sharing information, networking, self-promoting, flirting, and bragging outweigh breaches of privacy that accompany such behaviours,”(Singer) This is obvious by the continuous and unceasing use of social media platforms, but what needs to be considered is that this information is being provided willingly. “More difficult questions arise when the loss of privacy is not in any sense a choice.”(Singer) When the choice to be anonymous it taken away through social media, the person loses the ability to keep their personal information
James Stacey Taylor's article, "In Praise of Big Brother: Why We Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Government Surveillance" begins reviewing the concept of "Big Brother" as it was originally presented in George Orwell's 1984. The Big Brother started off as a fictional character in 1984-- a dictator of Oceania within a totalitarian state. Set within a society in which everyone is under complete surveillance by the authorities, mainly by telescreens, the people are constantly reminded of this by the phrase “Big Brother is watching you” (Wikipedia) . Taylor goes on to explain some examples of recent surveillance technology and how it is applied in lives today. An interesting note and comparison between today’s technology and that of the telescreens in 1984, is that people could be sure that they could not be watched by Big Brother’s telescreens by going out of the cities into the country, where they only had to take care that their conversations were not monitored by hidden microphones (Taylor 227). He contrasts the two, highlighting the fact that “Such an escape is not impossible, for spy satellites can be used to monitor people wherever they go” (277). From there, Taylor perpetuates the framework for his position on the Big Brother notion. Taylor argues that, "rather than opposing such an expansion of surveillance technology, its use should be encouraged -- and not only in the public realm" (227). Taylor’s argument presented in a more formal construction is as follows:
Have you ever heard of the idea of body-mounted cameras on police officers? If not, David Brooks will introduce you to the idea that was discussed in an article from New York Times called “The Lost Language of Privacy”. In this article, the author addressed both the positive and negative aspects of this topic but mostly concerned with privacy invasion for Americans. Although that is a valid concern but on a larger scale, he neglected to focus greatly on the significant benefits that we all desire.
In Is Anything Private Anymore, Sean Flynn gives a central message of his text that society does not have privacy anymore. We may think some things about us are “anonymous”, but in real it is not. Nothing stays as a secret, there is always someone who sees or hears you. Bankson who got documented twice shows us that nothing stays anonymous. The article claims that we are not only being watched outside but on social media as well and everything we do on internet is being monitored. Ina modern world we live right now, having privacy is impossible because by our name and phone number our information can be accessed. Social network may seem fun but it may affect you in many ways in future. “You learn why posting pictures of you riding the mechanical
One of the most sacred ideas that we hold dear is our right to privacy. It a simple correlation between being free and doing what we want, legally speaking, in our own homes and lives. Unfortunately, our lives seem to become less...
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.
Privacy is becoming rare as our society continues to become more industrialized and move towards a society hyper-focused on technology. Nicholas Carr explains this obsession with technology in his essay “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty.” He identifies three dangers that are present in today’s internet society that are: personal data can fall into the wrong hands easily, personal information may be used to influence our behavior, and personal privacy is eroding and may lead us as a society to devalue the concept of privacy. These dangers are not only possible but they are seen in our world today.
Holtzman, D. Privacy Lost: How Technology is Endangering your Privacy. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006. Print.
The personal connection Americans have with their phones, tablets, and computers; and the rising popularity of online shopping and social websites due to the massive influence the social media has on Americans, it is clear why this generation is called the Information Age, also known as Digital Age. With the Internet being a huge part of our lives, more and more personal data is being made available, because of our ever-increasing dependence and use of the Internet on our phones, tablets, and computers. Some corporations such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook; governments, and other third parties have been tracking our internet use and acquiring data in order to provide personalized services and advertisements for consumers. Many American such as Nicholas Carr who wrote the article “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty, With Real Dangers,” Anil Dagar who wrote the article “Internet, Economy and Privacy,” and Grace Nasri who wrote the article “Why Consumers are Increasingly Willing to Trade Data for Personalization,” believe that the continuing loss of personal privacy may lead us as a society to devalue the concept of privacy and see privacy as outdated and unimportant. Privacy is dead and corporations, governments, and third parties murdered it for their personal gain not for the interest of the public as they claim. There are more disadvantages than advantages on letting corporations, governments, and third parties track and acquire data to personalized services and advertisements for us.
“Human beings are not meant to lose their anonymity and privacy,” Sarah Chalke. When using the web, web users’ information tend to be easily accessible to government officials or hackers. In Nicholas Carr’s “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty,” Jim Harpers’ “Web Users Get As Much As They Give,” and Lori Andrews “Facebook is Using You” the topic of internet tracking stirred up many mixed views; however, some form of compromise can be reached on this issue, laws that enforces companies to inform the public on what personal information is being taken, creating advisements on social media about how web users can be more cautious to what kind of information they give out online, enabling your privacy settings and programs, eliminating weblining,
The attacks on American soil that solemn day of September 11, 2001, ignited a quarrel that the grade of singular privacy, need not be given away in the hunt of grander security. The security measures in place were planned to protect our democracy and its liberties yet, they are merely eroding the very existence with the start of a socialistic paradigm. Benjamin Franklin (1759), warned more than two centuries ago: “they that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Implementing security measures comes at a cost both economically and socially. Government bureaucrats can and will utilize information for personal political objectives. The Supreme Court is the final arbitrator of what the ‘law is”, causing a lack of circulated rule. The actual leaders with political purposes jeopardize our individual privacy rights, liberties, and freedoms.
A well-entrenched axiom in modern society is a person’s right to keep his or her thoughts private. When this privacy of mind conflicts with another’s privacy of action or speech, however, a compromise must be found. A person’s knowledge about another individual is one such case. The person with knowledge may not want to share he has it, while the other individual wants to know who has information about her. Charles Fried in his essay “Privacy” suggests these desires for privacy stem from the recognition that being able to keep things private gives significance to sharing them (Fried 484). To Fried, choosing to share information is the foundation of any relationship (Fried 480-481). In contrast to Fried’s focus on the individual’s basic right
Perhaps the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, said it best when he claimed that privacy is no longer a “social norm.” Virtually everyone has a smart phone and everyone has social media. We continue to disclose private information willingly and the private information we’re not disclosing willingly is being extracted from our accounts anyway. Technology certainly makes these things possible. However, there is an urgent need to make laws and regulations to protect against the stuff we’re not personally disclosing. It’s unsettling to think we are living in 1984 in the 21st century.
Solove expresses his point of view on privacy as "Why Privacy Matters Even If You Have Nothing to Hide.” I strongly agree his statement because if a person has a valid reason to keep something private, it is highly contemptuous in forcing them to reveal it. It is their basic freedom to choose their content to be revealed. The “Nothing to hide” argument creates a serious consequence on people’s mind that only wrong doers have to worry about hiding the data. Everybody probably has something to hide from somebody. Some people are convinced with the evidence that tracking phone calls, monitoring the people’s activities have saved the country’s security, which is inferred from “security interest in preventing
Privacy is a thing of the past because of social media and the internet. Our privacy is not what it used to be. This is due to the carelessness of what we post online and because of the way companies access our information without our full permission. Advertisers have full control on what they do with our personal information, and it is seldom tracked. The internet has truly become a dangerous place. To keep safe, we must be careful of what we post online and who we give our information