Should We Ditch The Idea Of Privacy Essay

Is the price of safety worth the loss of privacy? In June of 2013 civil rights lawyer and journalist Glenn Greenwald published on The Guardian the first of numerous articles containing files he’d received from former NSA sub contractor Edward Snowden. These files revealed unbeknownst to the American public details about multiple global surveillance programs currently being used by the United States NSA to collect their private data. Greenwald’s speech on “Why Privacy Matters,” during the TEDGlobal 2014 conference was compelling & deeply insightful. By providing the audience with credible knowledge of his research in addition to the use persuasive emotional and logical reasoning, Glenn Greenwald effectively argues the importance of privacy.

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.

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.

America was founded of the ideals of free speech and equality, but if one tries to exercise these rights to the fullest extent, one’s privacy would be jeopardized. The purpose

Privacy is what allows people to feel secure in their surroundings. With privacy, one is allowed to withhold or distribute the information they want by choice, but the ability to have that choice is being violated in today’s society. Benjamin Franklin once said, “He who sacrifices freedom or liberty will eventually have neither.” And that’s the unfortunate truth that is and has occurred in recent years. Privacy, especially in such a fast paced moving world, is extremely vital yet is extremely violated, as recently discovered the NSA has been spying on U.S. citizens for quite a while now; based on the Fourth Amendment, the risk of leaked and distorted individual information, as well as vulnerability to lack of anonymity.

The right to privacy means controlling your own personal information and the ability to allow or deny access to others. As Americans, we feel it's a right not a privilege to have privacy. IT technology and the events of September 11, 2001 are diminishing that right, whether its workplace privacy or personal privacy. From sending email, applying for a job, or even using the telephone, Americans right to privacy is in danger. Personal and professional information is being stored, link, transferred, shared, and even sold without your permission or knowledge. IT technology has benefited mankind tremendously in so many areas, but its also comes with a price. Advancements in technology make all individuals vulnerable to

In the world of instant messaging, text messages, tweets, and status updates, it is easy to get caught up in the idea that people are divulging more about themselves than they ever had. Indeed, sociologists such as Ben Agger would argue that we as a people are oversharing; a term he uses throughout his book of the same name. Agger references Emily Gould (2015) who defines oversharing as sharing an abundance of one’s life; perhaps too much (p.2). This essay will explore the idea of oversharing across the lifespan; arguing against many of the negative themes presented by Agger.

In today’s society, the word “privacy” has become ubiquitous. We see it every day; on HIPAA

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.

Privacy either encourages or is a necessary factor of human securities and fundamental value such as human embarrassment, independence, distinctiveness, freedom, and public affection. Being completely subject to mutual scrutiny will begin to lose self-respect, independence, distinctiveness, and freedom as a result of the sometimes strong burden to conform to public outlooks.

“Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty” is an essay written by Nicholas Carr in 2010 in the Wall Street Journal. He said that there are chances that, “our personal data will fall into the wrong hands” (Carr 438). It means that people’s personal information might drop under the hands of hackers, data aggressors, and stalkers. In addition, Carr believes that “personal information may be used to influence our behavior and even our thoughts in ways that are invisible to us” (Carr 439). It means that the data aggressors misuse people’s information in opposite way or in a wrong way. For example, data aggressors steal the people’s personal information and use that information for their own benefits. Therefore, Carr believes that government should regulate the internet. Unlike Carr, Harper believes that people are responsible for their own information. They should be aware and concerned about potential dangers of posting their personal information on the internet. However, it’s people duty to be aware of its consequences before posting any of their personal

Privacy is something we don’t really think about. Privacy is the last thing that comes up in our minds. The Internet is easily accessed by many people and can be hacked to find out important private information about anyone. People all over the world access the Internet, and when private information is posted online one person is going to be able to view that information no matter the privacy setting a person may use. The first article that I will use is “Who Is This Man, and Why Is He Screaming?” by Rachel Kadish. This article is about the author writing an article about her cousin Noam Galai. Galai took a photo of him self and posted it on Flickr. Months later he realized that his image was being used all around the world. The second

Privacy is something we all value, especially as Americans. This has been the case for quite some time, however not just Americans but the entire world is finding itself deep in a bog of fading privacy due to new technologies. The world has become hyper-connected, and with this has come private information becoming very available- often without a person’s knowledge or direct consent. The hyper connectivity has a lot of upside, but loss of privacy is not worth the wonderful technology of today. If you look over all of history, one of the things that would appear quite clearly is that knowledge is power. And today more than ever knowledge about people can be found online. This poses great risks to the masses of internet users as not just

In June 2013, a man named Edward Snowden released an enormous amount of documentation about how the National Security Agency (NSA) was literally copying everything on the Internet. This came as a surprise to many Americans who thought that they were safe from state sponsored surveillance. “I’m not doing anything so I have anything to worry about.” seems logical at first but, with a little inquiry, one can discover that they do in fact have some things to hide. For example, if someone truly doesn’t have anything to worry about, then they should be able to provide anyone their bank account number and pin on request? That’s a simple look at why privacy and encryption are such an important issue. Most people don’t think about privacy much

Privacy are one of those things that we re humans believe we are entitled to either through nature or law but even with our beliefs, privacy is one of those topics that are going to be discussed in a large extent in years to come because as humans, we are still struggling to find the balance between privacy and intrusion. When looking into privacy in the media today, one of the most discussed topics is about the government violating the citizen’s privacy while the government maintains that it all about safety procedure and maintaining national security. Edward Snowden the whistle blower from the CIA whom brought our attention to the government privacy intrusion in its citizens lives reminds me of the privacy/ openness problem that families are having in general.