E Email And Its Effects On The United States

Is anyone’s private information contained in their cell phone actually private? Are appointments, bank information, conversations, the user’s location or other sensitive personal information truly confidential? Is there a Big Brother watching? There is no definitive answer to any of these questions. From the beginning of time to now, privacy has become more and more scarce. Through new developments in technology, it is hard to believe that someone is not watching your move at any given moment. The government’s job is to keep Americans safe, but where is the line drawn? Where is the difference between having a reasonable doubt and accessing information solely because these government officials have the power to do so? The government has infringed upon the rights of the American people when it comes to this topic.

The notion of e-administration is rather expansive in its orientation and has often times been used interchangeably throughout the literature with e-government. According to Radu and Pokowski (2014) it “refers to any of a number of mechanisms which transform what in a traditional office are paper processes into electronic processes in order to create paperless office”. For other authors, it implies the application of electronic media for the management of the internal public organization (Ntulo and Otike, n.d.). In defining e-government Gordon (2002) cited by Signore, Chesi and Pallotti (2005) defined the concept as the use of ICT to improve the process of government. Radu and Pokowski (2014) contend that

Technology is evolving every day and as technology is growing so are the threats to the loss of confidentiality or privacy of individuals’ personal information which is stored in federal IT systems and databases. This white paper addresses an overview of privacy, the content required in a Privacy Impact Assessments for a federal IT system. In addition, this white paper addresses how the content of Privacy Impact Assessments is or can be used by privacy advocates and members of the public to influence public policy and policy makers. Finally, it discusses best practices and recommendations implemented to improve privacy of personally identifiable information in the context of federal

Organizations must conduct a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) for any new projects, new application development, existing critical applications that store or process personal information and also to changes to business processes or IT processes. A PIA describes the story of an application or system, database or other initiative and helps manage privacy impacts. Organizations must capture the flow of personal data within the enterprise landscape through a data flow diagram to analyze the possible privacy impacts on the privacy of individuals. The outcome of PIA must recommend options for privacy impacts remediation. The PIAs should analyze and describe:

We live in the age of information, a world that has now been largely digitalized. The World Wide Web is the central component of our era, as it allows people across the globe to share and receive information in an instance. It used to take months before a letter from China could reach the U.S, now it just takes a second with E-Mail. This fast pace information processing has allowed human society to move forward with unprecedented speed, but it also raises many concerns for government authorities. Sharing information is a powerful tool, and too much of it will make any government nervous.

In today's world almost anyone can easily access people's personal information and records simply by using a home computer. Most of these people can easily view governmental records and other personal information. Some people believe that having access to people's personal information can be beneficial, while others believe it's a failure of security and an invasion of privacy. This topic has started many heated debates which both sides have very strong arguments. But, overall the negatives outweigh the positives in people accessing personal information.

The execution of e-government is not an unadulterated technical issue only, yet rather an au-thoritative issue. Organizational difficulties include: Top administration support, Resistance to change to electronic ways, Collaboration and Lack of qualified work force and preparing.

“E-mail doesn’t just collapse distance, it demolishes all boundaries” (Leonard 233). The author of “We’ve Got Mail-Always” explains that e-mail can be “either a blessing or a curse”(Leonard 233). Does e-mail have positive or negative impact on personal and public discourse? Many people may say that it affects discourse negatively. Most people, however, agree that e-mail is a very common, cheap and quick form of communication which enables them to fulfill their social need of interaction. People at different age and different education or social level have their own e-mail accounts and they communicate with others electronically way very often. E-mail has positive impact on personal and public discourse.

Human beings value their privacy and the protection of their personal sphere of life. They value some control over who knows what about them. They certainly do not want their personal information to be accessible to just anyone at any time. But recent advances in information technology threaten privacy and have reduced the amount of control over personal data and open up the possibility of a range of negative consequences as a result of access to personal data. Data privacy or information privacy is the area of information technology (IT) that deals with the ability of an organization or individual to decide what data in a computer system can be shared with third parties.

Historically governments primarily had brick and mortar operations with data collection activities as part of specific operations like conducting surveys and taxation. However in the current era, just like with any private commercial entity, being digital and data driven is part of very function and operation of the government. Increasingly government activities and interactions with individuals are becoming digital which is in turn is leading to increased momentum of the collection, amount and availability of data. In fact this is also almost a basic expectation from clients who in the government’s case are the individuals. We as individuals are living in an unprecedented digitally open world also expect to interact with the government with the same convenience. The E-Government Act of 2002 has driven this movement towards “electronic governance”. The E-Government Act has enhanced the management and promotion of electronic Government services and processes by establishing a Federal Chief Information Officer within the Office of Management and Budget and by establishing a broad framework of measures that require using Internet-based information technology to enhance citizen access to Government information and services. In addition to electronic governance the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 have also increased momentum and scope of data collection. The legal and policy changes enacted in the

It suggests that any e-government project goes through different phases from basic site to joined-up e-government phase. Stage 1 is the Basic site and it represent provision of basic information, usually electronic versions of print documents but no email contact is given. Electronic Publishing is the second stage and represents provision of extensive downloadable, static information via ICTs, basic email contact is given but there is no online interaction. Third stage is Interactive Publishing. This stage includes provision of dynamic, customizable information via ICTs; with a capacity to internet (through email and online submissions). Ability to authenticate users and register their identities reliably in order to undertake complete transactions online; users may be able to manage their own accounts, this is the Transaction stage. Final stage is Joined-up e-Government, represent interlinking of different government structures/processes to produce electronic one-stop shops; users can access their own files/accounts and manage their relationships with government wholly via the

Data in its original shape contains sensitive information about individuals, and publishing such data will breach individual privacy. The recent practice in data publishing relies mainly on rules and guidelines as to what kinds of data can be published and on agreements on the use of published data. This approach may lead to extreme data distortion or inadequate protection.

The term Digital Government services is used to describe government services that are available online (DigitalGov, 2015). These include services such as enrolling in healthcare, paying for traffic tickets, and providing information on parks/monuments for tourists. This movement has been in motion since it was called E-Government in 2002. In that 2002 document, a committee was formed to decide how to use technology to improve government services and the information it provided (Civic Impulse, 2016). In 2004, a memorandum came out that outlined policies for how to protect privacy and implement security controls for these digital services (Johnson, 2004). Then in 2012, President Obama put out a memorandum titled “Building a 21st Century Digital Government.” This document outlined a 12-month roadmap that will serve to streamline the process of providing services via the web, as well as, increased security requirements of web biased government services (United States, 2012).

Policy environment is an important consideration in the United States, in order to understand the strategy of e-government implementation. A complete set of laws related to the development of e-government is already in place, including the Privacy Act, the Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act, the Electronic Freedom of Information Amendments, the Computer Security Act, the Critical Infrastructure Protection, the Government Paperwork Elimination Act, and the Electronic Government Act (Relyea, 2002).

E-government has the potential to improve greatly the delivery of public services, making them easier to access, more convenient to use, more responsive, more transparent and so on. It also has the potential to free up resources in the public sector by delivering services more efficiently. Therefore governments are keen to push their citizens to use online services to deliver public services more efficiently and faster with lower cost. For instance U.K. government, in February 2010, announced a new strategy for the public sector aimed at simplifying and standardizing ICT across the public sector to enable interoperability and data sharing while providing flexibility and efficient services that will deliver savings of over £