It is apparent that surveillance and privacy are two large components when looking to address the issue of homegrown terrorism in society. Due to the surveillance verses privacy debate as well as the issue of homegrown terrorism becoming more common topics in everyday life in society, there is an increased need for understanding of each side of the argument and all associated elements in relation to sociology and social control. If all parts of individuals’ lives are open for observation, people will feel as though they cannot live their lives freely, even if they are not doing anything wrong or illegal. However, surveillance can also be a good thing because it can help to determine threats of crime or terrorism and foresee situations. “All …show more content…
From a structural functionalism perspective which is the theory that social institutions and processes in society all serve a function to keep society running. This perspective is based on the work of Émile Durkheim, who said the best way to understand society is to look at the roles different aspects of society play. Social deviance is seen as a transgression from the norm; terrorism is seen as a major deviant behaviour. Structural functionalism sees terrorism as a crime and that it is functional because it brings people together against it and beings a sense of belonging to the group opposing it. Society often uses terrorism as a way to reiterate the importance of social norms in the lives of people. Some structural functionalists also see terrorism as expected and a needed shock for society to inspire it to change for the better because they think social change is necessary for a strong society. Moreover, conflict theory is the perspective that sees conflict between competing groups as a way to force social change in society, such as when resources, status and power are unevenly distributed between groups in society and conflicts emerge to fight for social change. Conflict theorists understand terrorism as a response to injustice, often due to misguidance, illiteracy or idealistic goals and the violence is expressed due to individual aggression and used as their proof to show their willingness to
The three major sociological perspectives offer some very different views of war and terrorism. They each have their own opinions and stances that may be controversial, but they all give unique views on war, past and present. Functionalism emphasizes the usefulness of certain behaviors and social institutions for many aspects of society. Conflict perspective utilizes the idea of peace, and how war is a negative thing all around. Symbolic interactionist perspectives can use war as
Yesterday April 19th,1995 Ex-Army soldier and security guard Timothy McVeigh parked his truck lined with explosives in front of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building downtown Oklahoma City.
The general public gives an problem with the government surveillance as a media for invading others privacy. With the government monitoring, collecting, and retaining people's personal data, one side would claim that it is an infringement of their freedom to the rights to privacy. While the National security associations justifies the reason for monitoring would be to maintain order. Their ways to maintain order would be to monitor criminal and terrorist activity and to detect incoming threats, terrorists, or problems that would harm their country. This issue shows that freedom cannot exist without order. Although the general public wants their freedom of their privacy, they can not achieve their most of their desires because it puts their lives at risk without protection. Order is necessary in order to have freedom. It is impossible to attain entire freedom for a cause, however, it is possible to attain freedom to a certain
An example of domestic homegrown terrorism is the June 17, 2015 Charleston church shooting. The gunman was Dylann Storm Roof an American who killed nine African Americans during a prayer service in hopes of igniting a race war. This occurred at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Shelby, North Carolina. Now an example of an international one is the 2014 Jerusalem tractor attack. This terrorist ramming attack occurred on August 4, 2014 in Jerusalem, Israel, the perpetrator was an Arab man named Muhammad Naïf El-Ja’abis. He drove an excavator type of tractor, injured eight pedestrians, and killed one, which was before ramming into a public bus. Not only did the bus flip, but he also kept hitting it repeatedly. Now a lone
Homeland and counter-terrorism programs outlines the policies needed to improve U.S. and global security in the 21st century. The policies analyze how the U.S. and foreign allies will work together toward goals by combating terrorism and their organizations. According to Joint Publication 3-26 (2014), joining with other key partners and allies to develop strategies and theater campaigns plans, helps protect U.S. interest in a common security agenda. This approach not only strengthens the U.S. but it also expands the international multilateral counter-terrorism agenda. For instance, U.S. policies heighten conversation on homeland security and counter-terrorism because it aims to serve globally and nationally. After the twin towns were attack, the department of Homeland Security created a policy called Homeland Security ACT 2002. This act covers multiple areas that needed improvement but it also gave an understand what is expected for security and the future of the country going forward. Science & technology, immigration, emergency response, and bioterrorism, are some of the policies that were created under the Homeland
The government is always watching to ensure safety of their country, including everything and everyone in it. Camera surveillance has become an accepted and almost expected addition to modern safety and crime prevention (“Where” para 1). Many people willingly give authorization to companies like Google and Facebook to make billions selling their personal preferences, interests, and data. Canada participates with the United States and other countries in monitoring national and even global communications (“Where” para 2). Many question the usefulness of this kind of surveillance (Hier, Let, and Walby 1).However, surveillance, used non-discriminatorily, is, arguably, the key technology to preventing terrorist plots (Eijkman 1). Government
This paper will focus on the issue of government surveillance on local citizens social media. This paper will try to provide a variety of pros and cons about government surveillance on social media, and it will try to answer the question of how surveillance on our countries local citizens can reduce or control crime and terrorism in the United States.
Domestic Terrorism can be described as many things. The FBI describes domestic terrorism as, “Perpetrated by individuals and/or groups inspired by or associated with primarily U.S.-based movements that espouse extremist ideologies of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.” People who commit domestic terrorism crimes often have different motives such as: religion, political, and even race. A specific case that resembles this, is the shooting in Las Vegas which occurred on June 8, 2014.
Terrorism, a word most people fear, but so often misinterpret. The textbook definition of terrorism is “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims”. But how does that compare to domestic terrorism? Domestic terrorism or “homegrown terrorism” can be defined as “the committing of terrorist acts in the perpetrator’s own country against their fellow citizens”. Throughout the years, America as a nation has experienced quite a few occurrences of both types. An early example of homegrown terrorism would be the Haymarket Affair which occurred May 4, 1886 where in Chicago’s Haymarket Square, labor protesters detonated a bomb during a rally. Chicago police then responded by firing
This force to prevent threats or acts of terrorism from occurring has given higher authorities an excuse to watch the acts of every individual in society. The restriction of movement, freedom, and constant surveillance are characteristics that can lead to a dystopian
National terrorism has been the focus of attention since September 11. But now domestic terrorism is becoming increasingly common among hate groups across the nation. Domestic terrorism can be defined as visible crime, or “street crime.” These acts would consist of violent crimes, (acts against people in which injury or death results) property crimes (acts that threaten property held by individuals or the state) and public order crimes. (acts that threaten the general well-being of society and challenger accepted moral principles) It can also however be described as political crime, (criminal acts by or against the government for ideological purposes) which would include the 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing.
The use of surveillance is becoming increasingly evident around the world. Surveillance is carried out in many different forms from simple methods such as video surveillance to more complex methods such as call and browser monitoring. Although it might seem that surveillance is undeniably convenient when pursuing a criminal or preventing a terrorist attack, it is often misused and many are beginning to question why there
Surveillance is not a new thing. In fact, espionage, tracking, and sleuthing were part of society ever since 5000 B.C. But in the rise of the modern era, the idea of surveillance in the public eye serves as a controversial topic of discussion. People everywhere complain about the existence of security cameras, government tracking, and the right to privacy. Such problems, however, are not due to the sudden discovery of surveillance, but the modern abuse of it. Seeing the disastrous effects of over surveillance from George Orwell’s 1984, the public rightfully fears societal deterioration through modern surveillance abuse portrayed in Matthew Hutson’s “Even Bugs Will Be Bugged” and the effects of such in Jennifer Golbeck’s “All Eyes On You”. The abuse of surveillance induces the fear of discovery through the invasion of privacy, and ensures the omnipresence of one’s past that haunt future endeavors, to ultimately obstruct human development and the progress of society overall.
With homegrown terrorism becoming an issue at the current moment, our prime minister and our government should focus more of our military division on homegrown terrorism while still keeping a bit of balance balance to fighting terrorism in other countries at the same time. The reasons why include large-scale terrorist groups such as ISIS who are constantly grasping into countries like Canada and grow terrorists in other countries for recruitment, making it a huge issue. Reason two is that terrorism has already had a large toll on other countries but homegrown terrorism can be even worse, taking the Parliament Hill shooting as an example. Finally, with large military forces fighting terrorism such as the USA, we are able to focus more on the
The functionalist perspective believes that each aspect of society is interdependent and makes the society function as a whole. Deviance may seem as though it is dysfunctional for society, but functionalists believe that deviance is necessary because it puts an emphasis on behaviors that are normal and creates a social standard for behavior. Symbolic internationalism is a sociological theory that uses symbols of everyday life. According to this theory, people attach meanings to symbols and act according to their interpretation of the symbols. Sociologists hold that the symbolic interaction theory shows that deviance and criminal behavior are attributed to the meanings surrounding deviance and how people view those meanings. The functionalist and symbolic theories focus on the positives of society. The third theory that sociologists use is the conflict theory. The conflict theory focuses on the negative aspects of society. Conflict theorists encourage social change. The conflict theory looks at how different groups of people compete against one another because of differing values.