Persuasive Essay On The Power Of Privacy

Did you know that 58% of employers have fired workers for Internet and email misuse? And 48% justify employee video monitoring as an effort to “counter theft and violence?” According to the “2007 Electronic Monitoring & Surveillance Survey” of which 304 U.S. companies participated in, computer-monitoring results have led to the highest cause of employee termination. These companies used several tactics to eavesdrop on employees while claiming to be managing productivity or for security purposes. Some argue that surveillance is absolutely necessary to help protect and grow a business; others argue that employee and customer rights come first. However, companies that use such tactics often violate the privacy of individuals, exploit their private information and even punish those that do not conform to their standards.

Crime has always been a problem in the world…. With the increasing crime rate and terrorist attacks, as portrayed from the 9/11 attack to… and son on, this forced the government to have an electronic surveillance to monitor and prevent such tragedies from happening. Even though security and safety was the main goal for this solution, it still made the people uncomfortable with having the feeling of being invaded of their privacy. Having surveillance does’nt mean safety, it can also mean …. Privacy higher value

Government surveillance is Getting watched by the government can be safe and can be quiet helpful in some cases such as, when a crime is committed by a criminal they can use cameras to record what happened and they can use that against the criminal.

Privacy. We often think of privacy as something necessary in homes, bathrooms, and in changing rooms. We expect privacy in our most vulnerable state. However, stories of cameras found in changing rooms at clothing stores without the consent of customers exist and in some cases, the stories live up to the tale. The shock of possibly finding a camera in a changing room seems like something out of a horror movie. The feelings of disgust and victimization come to mind about invasive cameras. The possibility of that happening to anybody seems low…right? No chance that anybody monitors our every move…right? Does the invasion of privacy only exist in the form of hidden cameras? The horror movie on invasion transitions to reality in the form of the government tapping into our conversations, texts, emails, and video recordings. Government surveillance allows for the invasion of privacy, which is unacceptable.

It is the year 2040 and drones fly around observing people everywhere. Being watched is normal; the people have no concept of privacy. Government surveillance is when the government constantly watches over a person, group, place, or ongoing activity to gather information. This process violates the Fourth Amendment and calls into question national security and the ethics of our government. While some may say that government surveillance is useful, the violation of privacy outweighs the benefits.

Today we can’t imagine our existence without the Internet, it came to our everyday life not so long ago, but now everything requires the Internet, whether you need to fill out a job application, check your card balance, pay the bill, take a college class or keep in touch with your friends and relatives. Progressively, people are revealing personal information about themselves and others online. Anyone can quickly capture information and images wherever he goes, and then can share it with the whole world at the one click of the button. Any stranger can take a picture of you and post it on the Internet, or somebody that you know can share your personal secret with an entire planet. Your kids might be posting confidential information about

When people think of surveillance, people think that it consists of spies and hidden cameras. Surveillance, however, consist of a much wider range of practices and technologies and real surveillance is subtler as presented in the documentary “An Eye on You” by Alexandre Valenti. Developments in modern technologies, administrative practices, commerce, and the government have culminated in surveillance in its various manifestation becoming organizing practice of late modern society. The film presents information that support the daily surveillance of citizens by the governments as well as its opposing view. The legality of the non-stop surveillance of innocent people, and the secretly information collected by the internet companies that passed it to the business industries that uses this data to promote customized items to be specific for each customer.

According to the US census bureau, about 87% of Americans freely use the internet. Luckily we can go to all the sites we want to go on because of net neutrality. Net neutrality is the idea that all content on the internet has equal treatment with equal speed to access everything on the internet. But, ISP (internet service providers) the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), and big phone companies are trying to enforce paid prioritization. Paid prioritization is the idea that companies should be able to pay ISP, or internet service providers, to have their content load faster than their competition’s content for consumers. Title ii of the Communications act guarantees us net neutrality but those rights are being challenged by ISP, the FCC, and the phone companies. I think we should keep the net neutrality laws so we can keep our freedom to access what we want on the internet.

Privacy is a concern for many American and provides a sense of individuality to the people. Not many people want their whole life recorded and watched by some outside source. People want lives where they can be their own person and make their own decisions without being constantly under surveillance(Feeney). If the government were able to watch every little thing each citizen does in that person’s own life, the government would have almost infinite knowledge on any person at any given time. This might be useful to catch criminals, but in the end would result in a “big brother” government(Feeney), with no individuality, an almost Dystopian setting. Privacy from government surveillance, if not important to some, is still a constitutional right in which every United States citizen is allowed. If the Second Amendment was not respected, who is to say people need to respect the others? Government drone surveillance, in many cases, can result in a breach of a citizen’s reasonable right to privacy, and will only become worse as drone technology advances.

In a world full of technology, “privacy” is hard to come by. With cameras everywhere and other people being able to easily hack or track phones and laptops, “privacy” is never completely guaranteed anymore. Letters and books turned to pagers, and pagers turned into phones. Over time, phones have gotten smaller and more technologically advanced, eventually becoming so advanced that cameras have been implanted into the devices. With cameras inside of cell phones, it is now easier to sneak a quick photo of someone or something without their knowledge or permission. Cameras, cell phones and laptops all have become ways to easily infringe on the basic American right of “privacy” as stated in the Fourth Amendment. These violations of “privacy” today have been depicted well in George Orwell’s 1984.

What is online privacy? Is there such a thing as having privacy online? As I use my laptop I start to notice that every website that requires a login already has my username and password preset and typed out for me, all I have to do is press on the ‘login now’ button. If my computer can automatically log into accounts that I’ve only logged in once or twice and recommend all my private information when I’m filling in shipping details; how can I be sure that this information is only seen by me? Consequently, we have a false illusion in our head that the information we post online will be kept safe and out of the public eye if we set it to private. The invasion of privacy is becoming a major issue and has been on the back of everyone’s mind because of the sudden explosion of social media in the past decade. In today’s digital age privately held information is easily accessed by others and negatively used. E-mails could be read and tracked, while internet cookies which store all types of personal information can be hacked. Internet users tend to have all their information saved in different types of computing services such as the iCloud or browsing data and have to regularly deal with hackers. Everything posted, saved or deleted online can be seen and recorded, nothing on the internet is private.

Centuries ago, the Puritans set sail for America in search of religious freedom. This desire created the foundation for a great nation. The freedom Americans enjoy each day is often taken for granted, and has shifted overtime. Since the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, government officials began to question the extent to which American privacy should be given to up to provide national security and prevent future attacks. As the world evolves, the level of personal and national security demands to increase, and in order to ensure safety, freedom and privacy take a back seat. In addition, in toda (Swift and Brighouse)y’s society, people become easily offended to the point where the offender can be easily punished. In essence, the United States is also facing a battle of words and the freedom to express them. However, freedom in the American society goes much deeper. Society has the idea that total equality should be in schools, the workplace, and success in life, where nobody wants to be left behind or below average. As time progresses, freedoms in America and throughout the rest of the globe will continue to be challenged.

Unknown once said, “Everything comes with a price. You can never gain something if you don't sacrifice something of equal value.” Years later, this point still stands valid; society is becoming slaves to our own technology. And it’s happening faster than we can comprehend. But what are we doing to stop it? With an increase in forums speaking out about the misuse of this black hole of a topic – is society’s irresponsible use of technology sentencing itself to a fate of political entrapment. Movies, documentaries and stories have formed about our digital irresponsibility and how it is catching up to us at a rate too fast to reverse. Seen in the documentary Terms and Conditions May Apply directed by Cullen Hoback and Snowden, directed by Oliver Stone, the erosion of online privacy and what information governments and corporations are legally taking from citizens each day is exposed.

The right to privacy has been nothing but smoke and mirrors, an illusion, a false sense of security. In reality there has been no such thing as privacy. Whether society accepts this fact or not depends on their personal opinions. Government Surveillance has become a tool that the leaders of this beautiful country have abused. There has been an old saying that states, “Knowledge is power.” The elite of this nation have allowed the government too much leniency when it comes to privacy policies and laws. Government Surveillance has always been unconstitutional, it poisons society, and they abuse their power.

People of all ages and from all different types of the world are constantly sharing personal information when using the internet. Whether it be uploading a picture onto social media, making a payment online, or even as simple as googling information it can all be used against you. It doesn’t matter what we do online as long as we are connected we are being watched. Uploading a picture on social media can result in someone taking a screenshot, sending it around and suddenly there’s people viewing a picture that wasn’t meant to be shared with specific people. Purchasing something on a source that isn’t reliable can result in having