Our Privacy Today : Rights Against Progress

Government officials try to put people’s concerns to rest with these statements, but the resentment toward the “snooping” continues (Zuckerman para 4) The government does, without a doubt have reason for the NSA’s surveillance.

While interpreting Should We Ditch the Idea of Privacy? by Don Tapscott, I had found that this article was my favorite. When it comes to choosing is one should stay private or keep their information public, I feel like that is up to that individual one hundred percent. In Should We Ditch the Idea of Privacy? Tapscott went over how many people should be more open and post more information on the internet to allow others to get a sense of what is going on. He believed Facebook is a “leading social-media site that promotes information sharing” making everyone’s life an open book for everyone to read and learn from. Additionally, to help is one is struggling with any mental health issues. Tapscott believes that by sharing personal information can

Over the last several years, cyber attacks have been continually rising. This is in response to emerging threats from rogue nations and terrorist groups. They are increasing their attacks on government, military and civilian installations. According to James Clapper (the Director of National Intelligence) these threats have become so severe. It is surpassing terrorism as the greatest challenge facing the nation. In response, the National Security Agency (NSA) began conducting surveillance on those who are involved in these activities and others which are threat to US national security interests. This program became so broad; it started continually collecting phone records and emails on ordinary Americans. This angered many, who felt that the US was acting in a way that circumvented established legal guidelines and procedures. To fully understand what is taking place requires focusing on the event, the government 's response and the ways it did / did not meet our national security goals. Together, these different elements will illustrate what occurred and the lasting impacts on everyone. (Greenwald 2014)

Today, we can find tabloids and magazines on shelves of supermarkets or kiosks with pictures of celebrities or occasionally normal people who do not realize that they were photographed while they were in their home or enjoying their vacations. The motivation for those photographers who take those photos are probably the same which motivated Darwin Bonaparte to film John in the novel “Brave New World”. They aspire to be famous and wealthy. They are truly selfish, irresponsible and materialistic. Indeed, they gravely violate the right of those people to have privacy. For example, an article published in the USA Today mentions and presents different opinions about it,

King, Geoffrey. "Clear and present danger: the NSA, surveillance and the threat to press freedom." Nieman Reports 68.1 (2014): 38+. Academic OneFile. Web. 8 Apr. 2014.

The NSA, or National Security Agency, is an American government intelligence agency responsible for collecting data on other countries and sometimes on American citizens in order to protect the country from outside risks. They can collect anything from the people’s phone data to their browser history and use it against them in the court of law. Since the catastrophes of September 11 attacks, the NSA’s surveillance capabilities have grown with the benefit of George W. Bush and the Executive Branch (Haugen 153). This decision has left a country divided for fifteen years, with people who agree that the NSA should be strengthened and others who think their powers should be limited or terminated. Although strengthening NSA surveillance may help the

With the seemingly exponential propagation of inexpensive digital communications technologies over recent years, the general public is becoming more aware of the issues surrounding information privacy and government surveillance in the digital age. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a smart-phone has to be wary of how they use their private information for fear of that information being collected and used in a way contrary to their wishes. "Leaky" smartphone apps that transmit private information across the internet can be unethically used by government agencies. The issue of privacy is a balancing act; the public usually wants increased privacy and the government usually wants increased access.

The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (USA PATRIOT Act) is one of the most controversial pieces of legislation to ever pass through the US Senate. Its critics use fear mongering tactics to scare people into opposition of an intrusive police state which they believe is inevitable given the government’s new powers. They consider the Act an assault on civil liberties and an invasion of the privacy of innocent American citizens. Yet the real issue is not that the government now has new powers, it’s that the American people do not trust our intelligence agencies to handle these new powers properly while still respecting their rights.

Three essays have been studied on this subject, (U.S. Patriot Act – Damian Coles, and The Patriot Act: Wise beyond Its Years – John Ashcroft, and Cassady Pitt - U.S.

In summary, the article is portraying that companies like Apple and Microsoft are going head to head and fighting for their customer’s civil liberties. News are saying U.S. federal government are allegedly gaining access to customer data without the individual’s knowledge. This brought in a outrage, and Microsoft is proposing that they are going to ensure alert to their customers whenever a fed is searching through their data. Through this process many companies are claiming that they are trying to bring down these snoopings by claiming a warrant canary. Many companies failed into getting the U.S. federal government to stop searching through customer data. But in terms they are claiming that the U.S. federal government is violating Americans

A) The main points of this reading is to show how the American people should wake up and care about what the government is doing in the years since 9/11 happened. The American people should understand what the affect the Patriot Act on the, “…takes away checks on law enforcement and threatens the very rights and freedoms that the nation is struggling to define,” (127). The Patriot Act goes against everything the constitution stands for and takes away American citizens rights. The last point the two authors are trying to make is why Iraq was invaded and why troops were needed to be deployed. The author points out it all come back to the world marker and the struggle to stay one top.

In the “No right to privacy” 2017 editorial cartoon by Scott Stantis published on the Chicago Tribune,

Government surveillance in the past was not a big threat due to the limitations on technology; however, in the current day, it has become an immense power for the government. Taylor, author of a book on Electronic Surveillance supports, "A generation ago, when records were tucked away on paper in manila folders, there was some assurance that such information wouldn 't be spread everywhere. Now, however, our life stories are available at the push of a button" (Taylor 111). With more and more Americans logging into social media cites and using text-messaging devices, the more providers of metadata the government has. In her journal “The Virtuous Spy: Privacy as an Ethical Limit”, Anita L. Allen, an expert on privacy law, writes, “Contemporary technologies of data collection make secret, privacy invading surveillance easy and nearly irresistible. For every technology of confidential personal communication…there are one or more counter-technologies of eavesdropping” (Allen 1). Being in the middle of the Digital Age, we have to be much more careful of the kinds of information we put in our digital devices.

Preview your Main Points: In “Making Sense of Snowden commentators write that, “US Congress is already debating an Intelligence and

“The consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival” (Orwell). The world today is full of many dangers domestic and abroad. It has become a routine in the news to report on the daily mass shooting or update with the war on terror. We live in a world where being worried is justified; however, we should not give up our constitutional rights in the face of fear. The NSA’s dragnet surveillance programs, such as PRISM, are both ineffective and are surpassed by less questionable national security programs. The FISA court's’ approval of NSA actions are not only illegal, but exist as an embarrassing formality. Surveillance is a necessary