Since My Last Response Paper, My Response Paper Has Become

Americans’ growing fear of a terrorist attack (McGill) coupled with cyberattacks on big businesses - such as the bank JPMorgan Chase (Granville) - have prompted Congress to push for bills that would considerably extend the NSA’s access to citizen’s private information. Recent technological advances have granted the government ways to search for and eliminate potential threats to the United States at the expense of personal privacy. As a result, a consistent topic of debate has become how much access to this data the government needs to effectively protect its people, without completely stripping them of all their privacy. A staunch advocate of internet privacy, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden has

In the fifth section of the book “Blown to Bits”, the author talks about and explains data encryption, and how to defend data from people who are spying on it on the internet. The first part of the chapter mentions an example of legislation that was after the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11th. Senator Judd Gregg had the idea that all encryption agencies had to give access to their encryption data so that their information can be seen and tracked. The idea was accepted and turned out to be a success after the publishing of the Patriot Act.

Is the issue of privacy in the context of our modern world easy to comprehend? Are privacy and cyber security one of the most pressing issues in our world today, or can we leave the task up to our government officials to regulate? These are all questions that law professor Daniel J. Solove attempts to answer. Armed with the help of privacy specialists, authors and blog commenters, Solove begins to unpack the nuanced dichotomy between privacy, surveillance and data collection. There are many opposing viewpoints that seek to sway the reader’s attention from the task at hand, which is demystifying the certain perils of our transparent world, which can be somewhat difficult to wrap the reader’s head around. The article’s rationale, while scattered, is consistent and layered in thought. While his credentials and literary examples bring an element of validity to the table, the nothing-to-hide argument messes with his rationale.

“There is no doubt that our nation’s security and defeating terrorism trump all other priorities.” The quote by Arlen Specter stresses the importance of a strong and persistent security system in America. After the dreadful events on September 11, 2001, the issue of whether privacy or the nation’s security is more important arose in the United States. Even after fifteen years, this debate is still relevant in politics. Our nation’s security is more important than the citizen’s privacy because lives will be protected and saved, the average person has nothing to hide for the government, and privacy has already been breached.

“You can't have 100% security and then also have 100% privacy and zero inconvenience. Society had to make choices” said President Obama. It has become a given in society that it is on the government’s agenda to procure its nation’s safety in exchange of the privacy or freedom of the people. Edward Snowden, a paladin of social justice, has now come to light with outstanding facts as for what specifically it is that the National Security Agency (NSA) is able and willing to do for the country’s sake. Snowden, a 29-year-old NSA ex-employee, worked from Hawaii on his computer support for the recollection of data in bulk from the whole nation . Under the name of Verax, which means truth teller in Latin, he

Many privacy violations are deemed justified because of the increasingly difficult war on terrorism, but that is arguably not a valid defense. “…privacy and safety are not conflicting parameters and that we must rethink our security legislation”

The defining moment in dismantling digital data privacy, in the United States specifically, was a necessitated response to prevent future terrorist attacks on the scale of 9/11. However, the responses of European governments and the United States differed dramatically. The EU member states focused on hardening their perceived targets. Conversely, the US focus

Finding the balance between national security and individual privacy is a seemingly unnerving task. Today’s society has made great strides in innovation and technological advancements all designed to make the lives of members of society faster and more convenient. These new technologies are not without a price. The most widespread price paid by users of technology is the loss of privacy that comes with the bulk collection of data from many of these devices by the government. With this rapid change in technology the meaning of privacy has changed over the years, it is now understood as freedom from having one’s personal life and information tampered with. Privacy is essential to civilization, it allows every individual to create and preserve

In order to address a security-related issue related to encryption in one case, the authorities risk unlocking a Pandora’s Box that could have extremely damaging implications for the human rights of many millions of people, including their physical and financial security. I recognize this case is far from reaching a conclusion in the US courts, and urge all concerned to look not just at the merits of the case itself but also at its potential wider impact. (Zeid, para 2,

Individual privacy is viewed as an invaluable commodity, and people are not willing to relinquish it easily. Privacy is not just an instrumental good, it is essential and necessary to achieve important human ends, such as trust and friendship” (Tavani, 2016, pp.122). While being outside of your home, where privacy is expected, you cannot automatically assume that you have full rights to privacy. “According to Moor, an individual has privacy only if they are protected from intrusion, interface, and information access by others” (Tavani, 2016, pp.119). What if intrusion of an individual’s space or access to their information can help prevent the next mass shooting in a workplace, or the failing of a business due to their trade secrets being shared? Is the loss of individual privacy then worth

In the discussions of the feud between Apple and the Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI), one controversial issue has been created. It centers around the encryption of technology. The FBI should not be given the access to backdoors in encryption as innocent users are exposed, American (US) businesses are harmed, and the increased rate of cybercrime.

The recent case between the FBI and Apple brought a worldwide ethical dilemma into the public eye, and it could have detrimental effects to the entire tech industry. The FBI wanted Apple to create backdoor access to encrypted data on one of San Bernardino shooter’s iPhones, and Apple refused just as many other large tech companies such as Amazon and Microsoft are doing nowadays. This situation creates the ethical dilemma of whether the government should have complete access to all encrypted data, and how consumers will react knowing their private data is not actually private.

Before proceeding, I should say that on a personal level, irrespective of the position I may have extolled in previous blog posts I think that data privacy and encryption, in particular, are valuable tools that are available to citizens within the digital realm.  Specifically, I am not in favor of encryption backdoors, master keys, or “clipper-style” chips that would allow government intrusion into electronic communications.

There is no doubt that out of all history, privacy is at its most vulnerable condition at the present time. Ironically, to secure the whole, individual safety is becoming harmed. The government and businesses are infringing individual privacy in order to protect their society. In effect, balancing between privacy and security has continuously been one of twenty-first century’s biggest controversial issues and everyone has their own views about where to value more. Throughout the essay, using various sources, I will be covering how privacy is becoming threatened, how people have been reacting to this matter, and introduce detailed opinions towards this topic.

Moore’s law dictates that approximately every two years, hardware computer processing power and memory capacity doubles. Through the ordinary lens, this exponential trend might be viewed as a blessing, endlessly increasing the capabilities of technology and science. However, perhaps when examined in a social context, such a trend unveils perverse possibilities. Every two years, the potential for government surveillance increases by an order of magnitude. And although the Bankston-Soltani principle described in Snowden’s TED talk, “Here’s How We Take Back the Internet”, asserts that every time this occurs the public must revisit and rebalance their rights to privacy, it seems as though such discussions have seldom been on the headlines