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Government surveillance issues
Surveillance in america
Surveillance in the us
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The issue of the collection of big data and how it impacts privacy of the individual is a prevalent concern to many. Many use big data including the government, business, and scientists. It can be argued that there are many benefits of big data, but there are many concerns about its use as well.
To start, it is important to know what big data is and what the sources of it are. Big data is simply put, data of a very large size. It goes beyond conventional data and is capable of reaching beyond traditional structured databases. It may include Tweets, pictures from Facebook, and email addresses, as well as standard items such as phone numbers. Big data is something that is growing exponentially, with analysts estimating that about 90% of it has been collected within the past two years. The sources of these data are found in many places, known as data sensors. These data sensors can be found in social sites such as Facebook or through search engines such as Google. The vast amount of information contained by such sites are then collected and analyzed by supercomputers. Internet sensors are also being installed, so that data may be collected through them as well, and not just sites that explicitly collect user information. Any site that collects user information, such as name, address, and phone number can be used as a data sensor, and contribute to the overall collection of big data.
Several different agencies, including the government, business, and scientists have their own uses and reasons for collecting and using big data. Government and business may collect big data through gathering personal information from cell phones, GPS devices, bank accounts, and retail purchases. The government uses this sort of information gathered t...
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...st offenses are misinterpreted, it can be harmful to the individual and may have a negative impact on their career or personal relationships. Many are concerned with the collection from popular sites such as Facebook, and believe that they should have the option of opting out of data collection programs. Countless individuals are concerned with the increasingly quick loss of privacy and ability to control their own personal information. Many believe they have the right to have their personal data removed if they so choose. Several state that they are afraid of the US turning into a surveillance state and cite Big Brother as a concern. Many are concerned that the increasing use of big data is a little too reminiscent of Orwell and are worried that the near future is going to be like 1984.
Ultimately, big data is a very prevalent issue to today’s political culture.
Edward Snowden is America’s most recent controversial figure. People can’t decide if he is their hero or traitor. Nevertheless, his leaks on the U.S. government surveillance program, PRISM, demand an explanation. Many American citizens have been enraged by the thought of the government tracing their telecommunication systems. According to factbrowser.com 54% of internet users would rather have more online privacy, even at the risk of security (Facts Tagged with Privacy). They say it is an infringement on their privacy rights of the constitution. However, some of them don’t mind; they believe it will help thwart the acts of terrorists. Both sides make a good point, but the inevitable future is one where the government is adapting as technology is changing. In order for us to continue living in the new digital decade, we must accept the government’s ability to surveil us.
The personal connection Americans have with their phones, tablets, and computers; and the rising popularity of online shopping and social websites due to the massive influence the social media has on Americans, it is clear why this generation is called the Information Age, also known as Digital Age. With the Internet being a huge part of our lives, more and more personal data is being made available, because of our ever-increasing dependence and use of the Internet on our phones, tablets, and computers. Some corporations such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook; governments, and other third parties have been tracking our internet use and acquiring data in order to provide personalized services and advertisements for consumers. Many American such as Nicholas Carr who wrote the article “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty, With Real Dangers,” Anil Dagar who wrote the article “Internet, Economy and Privacy,” and Grace Nasri who wrote the article “Why Consumers are Increasingly Willing to Trade Data for Personalization,” believe that the continuing loss of personal privacy may lead us as a society to devalue the concept of privacy and see privacy as outdated and unimportant. Privacy is dead and corporations, governments, and third parties murdered it for their personal gain not for the interest of the public as they claim. There are more disadvantages than advantages on letting corporations, governments, and third parties track and acquire data to personalized services and advertisements for us.
Taylor, James Stacey. "In Praise of Big Brother: Why We Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Government Surveillance." Public Affairs Quarterly July 2005: 227-246.
Most people concerned about the privacy implications of government surveillance aren’t arguing for no[sic] surveillance and absolute privacy. They’d be fine giving up some privacy as long as appropriate controls, limitations, oversight and accountability mechanisms were in place. ”(“5 Myths about Privacy”). The fight for privacy rights is by no means a recent conflict.
If a stranger would approach someone on the street, would one casually offer personal information to him? Would one allow him to follow and record one’s activities? Although it may be obvious in the concrete world that one would not allow it, the behavior of the general population on the Internet is strikingly different. While surfing websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google, many people provide personal details to enhance their online profile? These websites retain vast amounts of personal information from their users. Although this practice benefits the user as well, unrestricted profiling can become an alarming catastrophe. Unless the threat to internet users privacy are shown to exceed the benefits, we should not regulate the internet, rather we should educate the public how to be more responsible about their identities.
Technology and the Invasion of Privacy As citizens of America we are all entitled to our rights of privacy. When something threatens this guaranteed privacy we tend to take extra precautions to prohibit prolonged violation. As the advancing world of technology continues to grow and expand, so do the amount of cases involving privacy invasion. Technology drives these privacy-invading crimes; however, crime also drives technology, creating a vicious cycle.
The world erupted in outrage following revelations by Edward Snowden regarding the extent of surveillance perform by the National Security Agency. Privacy becomes one of the hottest topic of 2013 and was chosen by the world’s most popular online dictionary, Dictionary.com, as the Word of the Year. However, the government is not the only one that conduct data gathering and surveillance. Employers often monitor their employees, and businesses collect data on theirs customer. The morality of these practices is a topic that generates heated debate.
You may ask what big data analytics is. Well according to SAS, the leading company in business analytics software and services describes big data analytics as “the process of examining big data to uncover hidden patterns, unknown correlations and other useful information that can be used to make better decisions.” As the goal of many companies which is to seek insights into the massive amount of structured, unstructured, and binary data at their disposal to improve business decisions and outcomes, it is evident why big data analytics is a big deal. “Big data differs from traditional data gathering due to that it captures, manages, and processes the data with low-latency. It also one or more of the listed characteristics: high volume, high velocity, or high variety. Big data comes from sensors, devices, video/audio, networks, log files, web, and social media which much of it is generated in real time and in a very large scale.”(IBM) In other words, companies moving towards big data analytics are able to see faster results but it continues to reach exceptional levels moving faster than the average person can maintain.
Big Data is a term used to refer to extremely large and complex data sets that have grown beyond the ability to manage and analyse them with traditional data processing tools. However, Big Data contains a lot of valuable information which if extracted successfully, it will help a lot for business, scientific research, to predict the upcoming epidemic and even determining traffic conditions in real time. Therefore, these data must be collected, organized, storage, search, sharing in a different way than usual. In this article, invite you and learn about Big Data, methods people use to exploit it and how it helps our life.
There has always been surveillance of the general public conducted by the United States government, the usual justifications being upholding the security of the nation, weeding out those who intend to bring harm to the nation, and more. But the methods for acquiring such information on citizens of the United States were not very sophisticated many years ago, so the impact of government surveillance was not as great. As a result of many technological advancements today, the methods for acquiring personal information - phone metadata, internet history and more - have become much simpler and sophisticated. Many times, the information acquired from different individuals is done so without their consent or knowledge. The current surveillance of people by the United States government is unethical because it is done so without consent and it infringes on a person’s rights to privacy and personal freedom.
...onal privacy dead?” brings up many other questions along with it. But there is no doubt that the government is doing all of what they are doing for safety reasons. They claim to want to make the United States as safe as possible, and this has proved to ring true in many situations. But now the inevitable new question becomes: How far is too far? Is safety more important than privacy? To know these answers, one must ask themselves and know their own opinion on the situation. But whatever their answers may be, and despite the multiple other questions that are brought up along with the topic of personal privacy, there is still one thing that is known for sure: personal privacy is dead. And unless the use of technology becomes less critical to the United States, personal privacy will always be dead. The bigger the role technology has; the less personal privacy there is.
As technology as advanced, so has our society. We are able to accomplish many tasks much easier, faster, and in effective ways. However, if looked at the harmful impact it has had on the society, one can realize that these are severe and really negative. One of the main concerns is privacy rights. Many people want that their information and personal data be kept in secrecy, however with today’s technology, privacy is almost impossible. No matter how hard one tries, information being leaked through technological advancements have become more and more common. With personal information being leaked, one does not know exactly how the information will be used, which validates the statement that privacy rights have been diminishing and should be brought to concern. Many people do not realize that their information is being used by third-parties and to consumer companies. In conclusion, technology has had a significant effect on privacy
Perhaps the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, said it best when he claimed that privacy is no longer a “social norm.” Virtually everyone has a smart phone and everyone has social media. We continue to disclose private information willingly and the private information we’re not disclosing willingly is being extracted from our accounts anyway. Technology certainly makes these things possible. However, there is an urgent need to make laws and regulations to protect against the stuff we’re not personally disclosing. It’s unsettling to think we are living in 1984 in the 21st century.
As technology penetrates society through Internet sites, smartphones, social networks, and other modes of technology, questions are raised as the whether lines are being crossed. People spend a vast majority of their time spreading information about themselves and others through these various types of technology. The problem with all these variations is that there is no effective way of knowing what information is being collected and how it is used. The users of this revolutionary technology cannot control the fate of this information, but can only control their choice of releasing information into the cyber world. There is no denying that as technology becomes more and more integrated into one’s life, so does the sacrificing of that person’s privacy into the cyber world. The question being raised is today’s technology depleting the level of privacy that each member of society have? In today’s society technology has reduced our privacy due to the amount of personal information released on social networks, smartphones, and street view mapping by Google. All three of these aspects include societies tendency to provide other technology users with information about daily occurrences. The information that will be provided in this paper deals with assessing how technology impacts our privacy.
Big data originated with web search companies that encountered problems with querying large amounts of both structured and unstructured data. With regard to its background, “big data came into being when web search companies developed ways to perform distributed computing on large data sets on computer clusters” Floyer (2014: 1). Big data then spread to enterprises due to their adoption of developing, processing and dissemination of data.