Haus
of Weber – Current Events – NSA Information Gathering
Is your privacy
being invaded?
This is a topic of discussion that has many conflicting
aspects because it’s such a complicated and ironic subject. I started to
research this subject and decided to first understand the meaning of privacy.
When I researched the meaning of privacy I found a myriad of information and
began to realize that I could write an article on the meaning of privacy alone.
This was not the purpose of this article but let’s just say privacy is a
complicated issue. The Constitution of
the United States does not use the word privacy but alludes to it in some of
the Amendments such as the 1st and 4th amendments.
The NSA is gathering vast amounts of information especially
phone data in order to safeguard the American people against foreign enemies.
This poses many questions as to the legitimacy and need to gather this
information and its infringement on an individual’s right to privacy. These are legitimate questions and concerns
but are kind of ironic in certain respects.
We started to lose some of our privacy when we went into the
Internet age and put our information out there. You could even say that the use
of credit cards began the private information gathering age. It became apparent
after a period of time that these companies, that were gathering our
information, found many beneficial ways to use that information by developing
files to track our buying patterns and also selling some of that information to
other business concerns for their use. The internet and technology have grown
substantially since then and with every passing year more and more of our
private information is gathered and used decreasing our expectation of privacy and
we do this voluntarily, in most cases. The following examples are just some of
the ways our privacy is being compromised:
·
Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, Spotify are just some
of the companies where you provide your private information for communication
on a site with other individuals and these companies are sharing your
information with each other and you provide pictures, communications, videos,
private thoughts and other personal information for people to see.
·
Credit cards track your buying habits.
·
Cameras on street corners can track your
movements
·
We wear medical devices that can locate our
whereabouts.
·
We use GPS devices that can pinpoint your
location while you try to get to your destination.
·
Cell
phones with locating software and camera options that can take pictures and
video of private moments.
·
Finger prints stored to provide access to your
devices
·
Google Earth that can zoom in on your home.
·
Drones
·
Satellites
·
Taxation – you provide information on your
salary and earnings.
According to Amitai Etzioni
The government is no longer the
only or even principle threat to people’s privacy. Corporate data miners or
privacy merchants stand to profit by selling massive dossiers of personal
information, including purchasing decisions and internet traffic to the highest
bidder. This information is also available to the government.
The other thing I think we should
be more concerned about then the NSA and companies infringing our privacy is
hackers who steal our information for illicit and illegal purposes. This poses
more of a threat to our privacy then any aforementioned issues.
The bottom line then becomes how
is the NSA using this information and how do we control it. There is a report
that was submitted to President Obama that outlines the uses and possible
abuses of this information gathering and provides viable solutions to control
this delicate situation. You can go to Huffington Post and look up Geoffrey R.
Stone’s blog and read how this report proposes to resolve this issue. It’s a
good read.
What’s your opinion? We would
enjoy your feedback. CLICK HERE
Sites of interest:
Reuters
Wikipedia
thewire.com
huffingtonpost.com
Updates from previous blogs;
The emergency unemployment
compensation benefits have not been extended and many people who have collected
benefits for over 26 weeks are no longer collecting benefits.
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