Persuasive Essay

With the rise of the internet, some people argue that privacy no longer exists. From the 2013 revelations of government surveillance of citizens’ communications to companies that monitor their employees’ internet usage, this argument seems to be increasingly true. Yet, Harvard Law professor Charles Fried states that privacy, “is necessarily related to ends and relations of the most fundamental sort: respect, love, friendship and trust” (Fried 477). However, Fried is not arguing that in a world where privacy, in its most simple terms, is becoming scarce that these foundations of human interactions are also disappearing. Instead, Fried expands on the traditional definition of privacy while contesting that privacy, although typically viewed

The debate between where to draw the line between allowing government surveillance and keeping society’s members privacy will never be completely clear. It is important to keep a part of an individual’s life private and once the Untied States voted the Patriot Act in privacy went from limited to microscopic. Widening the scope of government surveillance slowly but surely pushes privacy out of the

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 new technology rolling out onto the market seemingly everyday, the privacy of many is disappearing and has even become nonexistent. With many scandals over the past few years, government agencies have been accused of using these new communication resources as means to keep a watchful eye over their citizens. This is the very topic discussed by Peter Singer in his essay “Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets”. Singer discusses the benefits and pitfalls that have come from these communication innovations, going in depth on the tactics and resources used by civilians as well as governments to keep track of each other. Singer presents strong premises that argue for the conservation of the individual privacy rights while also arguing for governments to become more transparent, creating an overall controversial element to his essay, as he is only half invested in transparency as a whole between civilians and the body that governs them, that comes off as somewhat unconvincing as the two arguments contradict each other.

“While individuals may not have an expectation of privacy in public, they do have an expectation of anonymity. A person expects to be able to walk down the street and blend into the crowd. There are many public settings in which a person does not expect to be recorded, even if they could be casually observed. Some of these settings could be sensitive, embarrassing, or incriminating…” [3].

As a growing topic of discussion, privacy in our society has stirred quite some concern. With the increase of technology and social networking our standards for privacy have been altered and the boundary between privacy and government has been blurred. In the article, Visible Man: Ethics in a World Without Secrets, Peter Singer addresses the different aspects of privacy that are being affected through the use of technology. The role of privacy in a democratic society is a tricky endeavor, however, each individual has a right to privacy. In our society, surveillance undermines privacy and without privacy there can be no democracy.

When I think of public safety versus personal privacy, I think of a constant shifting teeter-totter. The balance between the two is extremely difficult when deciding “Is this a violation of privacy?” or “Am I doing enough to ensure public safety?” Often times, the teeter-totter is never in a perfect, straight line. In fact, in most situations, the teeter-totter is weighed down on the public safety side or the privacy side. Whether the teeter-totter is weighed down on either side, we must make a sacrifice. As citizens, we put our trust in the government to ensure safety among us, meaning we must give up some of our privacy. In other situations our privacy is more important, so we have to give up a stronger sense of public safety. For instance,

“Privacy is not something that I’m merely entitled to, it’s an absolute prerequisite.” Marlon Brando’s statement poses the notion that privacy remains a necessity that the communal force must recognize so that a citizen can satisfy his or her personal impulses. This leads the progenitors of a community to ponder the following question: If a communal force chooses to endorse a citizen's right to privacy, are the consequences less detrimental than if that same privacy is denied? Considering the guilt one bears when not following social norms, the dilemma the main characters in The Scarlet Letter face,and the unique identity one can shape when granted a right to privacy the answer is a prevailing yes.

The complex relationship between technology and the social sphere of human privacy becomes a major concern in modern society. Privacy is an imprescriptible right, and enjoyable. Even between family members, they all can have some secrets, which helps to build personality and makes them to be more like themselves. Instead, if everything about a person has exposed to public, and the personality might change with public opinion. Peter Singer discusses in his essay “Visible Man: Ethics in a world without secrets” that social networking makes the living circumstance becomes a Panopticon, which is no privacy in daily life and this surveillance technology helps government stifling dissent for a more secure country.

Private privacy is personal information that people keep secret from public; it also means to refrain people from knowing about them or their situations. Many companies and businesses wants to protect people from hackers and thieves from using their information, such as Social Security and credit card barcodes; consequently, hackers use people’s information to buy illegal products or to expose explicit information from their social media pages to the public. Other suggested that personal privacy does not exist when the government is watching people, stopping terrorists and criminals from plotting attacks against their communities. David Plotz, a writer and deputy editor of Slate, wrote an essay entitled “Privacy is Overrated” to talk about

Privacy and the conflicts associated with it that citizens face are some of the most controversial topics in the world today. One of the main conflicts that citizens deal with is if the government is spying on us all the time and that if people feel that this it is an invasion of their privacy. Peter Singer evaluates on this topic of the good and bad of privacy in his essay, “Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets”. He explains how technology has changed the way people think about privacy. People know and share all kinds of information about themselves through social media.

Imagine yourself in your room, doing activities you would normally do in private. No one to bother you, no worries on your mind. Now imagine that the entire the time someone was watching you. Before one can question privacy, one must define it. So, what really is privacy? In scholarly terms, the Oxford Dictionary defines privacy as, “a state in which one is not observed or disturbed by other people.” The important context to take out of this definition is “state,” for privacy is simply a perception. Many authors have written works that question privacy; however, one of those authors wrote a classic that will be analyzed for years to come. As compared to today’s world, George Orwell’s dystopian society in 1984 seems as if it is an unachievable

In the dystopia of George Orwell’s 1984, surveillance shadows citizens, stalking them from telescreens and on streets while an omniscient government scrutinizes their every move. The incessant scrutiny impedes citizens from ever being alone. The only time isolation seems possible is in sleep, and even then relaxing or showing honest emotions could lead to death. Ideas of freedom, liberty, and privacy have been eliminated, throwing society into a present-day apocalypse.

At the time Radebaugh’s comic was published, it likely gave rise to a plethora of questions about the government’s ability to track and trace members of the public. People may have questioned whether giving up their privacy was the necessary cost of safety. Perhaps the police were going to turn into their own sort of ‘Big Brother’, and they would abuse their power of surveillance techniques in order to control the masses. Consequently, the 21st century is also beset with many relevant questions concerning this topic. Ultimately, it can be stated that, in contrast with Radebaugh’s comic, the real world does a significantly more effective job of using surveillance techniques, as law enforcement uses video surveillance more cost-effectively, they utilize new and alternative technologies in addition to the CCTV camera, and they consistently do a better job of acknowledging the people’s right to privacy. Thus, this essay sets out to suggest that, while the social cost of surveillance techniques remains high, the legal provisions regarding privacy that exist in the real world have kept police

Today, individuals are sacrificing privacy in order to feel safe. These sacrifices have made a significant impact on the current meaning of privacy, but may have greater consequences in the future. According to Debbie Kasper in her journal, “The Evolution (Or Devolution) of Privacy,” privacy is a struggling dilemma in America. Kasper asks, “If it is gone, when did it disappear, and why?”(Kasper 69). Our past generation has experienced the baby boom, and the world today is witnessing a technological boom. Technology is growing at an exponential rate, thus making information easier to access and share than ever before. The rapid diminishing of privacy is leaving Americans desperate for change.