National Security vs. the Right to Privacy

1764 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: What are the advantages and disadvantages of electronic mail

Abstract: Electronic mail is quickly becoming the most prevalent method of communication in the world. However, e-mail systems in corporate, institutional, and commercial environments are all potential targets of monitoring, surveillance and ultimately, censorship. Electronic mail is a phenomenon that has begun to pervade all aspects of our lives today. We use e-mail in our personal lives, at our schools, at our jobs, and everywhere in between. However, very few of us consider the fact that even though our e-mail is composed by the sender, and is intended to be read only by the recipient, it actually passes through many hands in between. Transmitted e-mail will often travel through up to 5 or 6 different servers on its way from sender to recipient. Along the way, it can be read, changed, and even destroyed by any party with the means and the inclination to do so. The decision to monitor e-mail is left to the organization that provides the e-mail service to users. These organizations can range from educational institutions and private corporations, to governments and non-profit organizations. Each of these different types of organizations has a different agenda and goals, not only in general, but also for their members-and more specifically, for their members' e-mail. While educational institutions can provide e-mail facilities to their constituents for the purposes of convenience, employers almost always maintain e-mail facilities for the sole purpose of improving the on-the-job productivity of their employees. Richard Epstein's The Case of the Killer Robot, provides an ideal demonstration of the benefits of e-mail monitoring. "Silicon Techronics Employee Admits Faking Software Tests" (... ... middle of paper ... .... Ethics and computing: living responsibly in a computerized world. IEEE. 2001. Cripps, Wayne. Dartmouth College, Department of Computer Sciences. Personal Communication, January 24th, 2001. Epstein, Richard. The case of the killer robot: stories about the professional, ethical and societal dimensions of computing. John Wiley and Sons. 1996. Federal Bureau of Investigation. "Congressional Statement -2000." http://www.fbi.gov/pressrm/congress/congress00/kerr090600.htm. Higgins, Kevan. Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton. Personal Communication, January 23rd, 2001. Matthews, James. Dartmouth College, Department of Computing Services. Personal Communication, January 23rd, February 7th, 2001. User Communications. Dartmouth College, Department of Computing Services. "Computer and Network Policy." BlitzMail Bulletin. Wed, 15 Nov 2000 13:36:45.

Show More
Related

  • Hmong Textiles

    966 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Hmong people are well known for their survival antics from their silent war with China and their migration from the Vietnam War. Hmong is a term many have never even heard of but their culture it is known as "free people." Hmong textiles has survived just like their whole culture. The attractive handcrafted designs have been in their history for over two centuries, and their embroideries are popular among the Asian countries as well as the United States. Hmong textiles includes a variety of embroideries on their Flower cloths, story cloths, and their New Year dress. All fabrics have powerful importance in their customs to bring prosperity and good fortunes. Needlework is a substantial skill in their community that can not be forgotten, symbolizing work ethics and preservation of their culture.

    Read More

  • Hmong Case Study

    900 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Hmong, an Asian ethnic group, came from an oral culture, where they did not have any written form until the 1950s (McCall, 1999). The Hmong lived an agricultural lifestyle in the hill and mountain areas in Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand (McCall, 1999; Tatman, 2004). They focused on physical labor to provide food for the family and lacked formal education, as it was not essential (Lee & Green, 2008; McCall, 1999).

    Read More

  • Isaac Asimov's Three Laws Of Robotics6: What Causes?

    2618 Words  | 6 Pages

    From the beginning, as technology casually began to integrate into our daily routine. A significant portion of society lived in constant fear of a possible uprising from an advanced robotic regime, which we built to serve us, which would rally together and enslave the entire human race. Well, probably not that many people believed this, nevertheless, the scenario has been depicted in popular media for several decades. This iconic list of nefarious antagonists includes HAL 90001, M52, Master Control Program3, Skynet4, and the demented little robot who dastardly ascertained the capacity to ‘love’, Wall-E5. A science fiction writer named Isaac Asimov, who was also popular for portraying this theme, became immortalized on the day his Three Laws of Robotics6 were published. The laws which were substantially influential on pop culture, were written as follows; (1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. (2) A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. (3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws7. The overwhelming success from the introduction of these laws unto mainstream media could be seen as a reflection of the subtle concern present amongst the general public when considering Artificial Intelligence (AI)8. Even Stephen Hawking laid out his extreme concerns recently, over the future of AI, by remarking "success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history,[but] unfortunately, it might also be the last"9. However, computing technology, as it exists today, functions at only a fraction of the human brain’s capacity and it w...

    Read More

  • John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contract

    1125 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Enlightenment was an astonishing time of transformation in Europe. During this time in the eighteenth century there was a progressive movement that was labeled by its criticism of the normal religious, social, and political perceptions. A number of significant thinkers, with new philosophies, had inspired creativeness and change. These thinkers had many different thoughts and views on people and the way they act, and views on the government. Two well-known and most influential thinkers of this time were the English political philosopher John Locke and the French political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. These two men had laid down some of the intellectual grounds of the modern day government and both had different opinions on what the government’s role in a society.

    Read More

  • Social Rights And Freedom In John Mill's On Liberty

    813 Words  | 2 Pages

    John Mill’s On Liberty seeks to expound on how individuals and the society can exist as liberal entities without infringing on each other’s rights. Liberty is the condition of being free within the society, that is free from any form of restriction inflicted by authority. He argues that individual freedom is the basis of democracy where people exercise their own free will (Mill 2005). He also rejects the idea of social contract where individuals comply with society for them to gain social benefit (Mill 2005). It is generally thought that social development can only occur if certain constraints are placed on individual liberty. But the contrary is also true, if restriction are placed on people’s freedom, it becomes difficult for them to thrive

    Read More

  • Morality In Eando Binder's I, Robot

    1707 Words  | 4 Pages

    People love to read stories and watch movies of a science-fictional society that include robots with artificial intelligence. People are intrigued with the ability of the robots that seem to demonstrate what we humans consider morality. Eando Binder’s and Isaac Asimov’s short stories, as well as the 2004 Hollywood movie, all carry the title “I, Robot” and introduce possible futuristic worlds where robots are created and integrated within society. These stories challenge our perceptions about robots themselves, and could perhaps become an everyday commodity, or even valued assistants to human society. The different generations of “I, Robot” seem to set out the principles of robot behavior and showcase robots to people in both different and similar ways. How does the Robot view itself? More importantly, how does society judge these creations? The concepts discussed in these three stories covers almost 75 years of storytelling. Why has this theme stayed so relevant for so long?

    Read More

  • The Hmong Family Traditions

    884 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Hmong people are very traditional. They have passed down the same traditions for the past 5000 years. Family is very important to the Hmong, even though families tend to be scattered across the country in the United States. Many Hmong families came to the United States after the Vietnam War to start a new life. They came here because they were displaced refugees and no longer had a home. They did not want to assimilate and lose their traditions, but the younger generations of Hmong seem to be moving farther from the old traditional ways, becoming more American.

    Read More

  • The Sociological Impact of Nanotechnology and Biotechnology

    2224 Words  | 5 Pages

    Brooks, Rodney A. "1. Dances With Machines." Flesh And Machines: How Ro-bots Will Change Us. 1st ed. New York: Pantheon Books, 2002.

    Read More

  • Two Sides Of Incress Essay: Dissecting Stress

    1082 Words  | 3 Pages

    Stress, as defined as a reaction to a stimulus that breaks our physical and mental harmony, is ubiquitous. However, stress has two sides – the bad and the good, in which the latter is mostly overlooked as most people suffer from the affliction of the former.

    Read More

  • People know what they do; they frequently know why they do what they do; but what they don't know is what what they do does.

    5200 Words  | 11 Pages

    As a society, we hold dear the value of privacy and confidentiality as a basic fundamental right. Access to the new technology of electronic mail can jeopardize both values.

    Read More

  • Jean Paul Sartre's Existentialist Belief, We Are Completely Free

    1163 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sartre is one of the constructors of the philosophy of existence that is existentialism. Humans must first be born and exist before they are able to define their essence. He states that there is no universal statement about what humans are. But, there is one overall statement about the circumstances that make us human, which is that we are free. He believes that when we have to make decisions nothing is forcing us to do what we are doing. Which leads to the idea that humans have to take full responsibility for our actions, beliefs and emotions. By being aware that we are free, the responsibility of this can cause “anguish” according to Sartre. One of the most painful thoughts can be that we alone are totally responsible for what happens to us. To avoid the pain of some of the bad decisions we make people can act as if they had no choice and may pretend that they are not free which would make them not responsible. When you act like you were not free and are not responsible is known as having bad faith. That is humans try to convince themselves that outside forces, forces that are beyond control or our conscious mental state helped determine the decisions we made.

    Read More

  • Stress: Avoidance and Treatments

    2119 Words  | 5 Pages

    Stress is the base of many diseases as it reduced the effectiveness of the immune system (Edwards, et al., 2006). It is common in our modern lives to be constantly under the feeling of stress and pressure from outside world and the feeling of inadequateness, incompetence or simply weakness in our minds. From the noises of traffic to loud music from the next apartment, it seems that stress is almost unavoidable in today’s life.

    Read More

  • Ethics in Technology

    1544 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the early years of computers and computerized technology, computer engineers had to believe that their contribution to the development of computer technology would produce positive impacts on the people that would use it. During the infancy of computer technology, ethical issues concerning computer technology were almost nonexistent because computers back then were not as multifaceted as they are today. However, ethical issues relating to computer technology and cyber technology is undeniable in today’s society. Computer technology plays a crucial role in all aspects of our daily lives. Different forms of computer technology provide unique functionalities that allow people to perform daily activities effectively and efficiently. In modern society, we use computer and cyber technology to communicate with friends and family via social networking sites, participate in business transactions, and get current news. Different tasks require unique technological feature in computer technology to function properly. Although, unique technological features increase people’s proficiency in accomplishing various tasks, unique technological features in computer and cyber technology increase security vulnerabilities. In many cases, the security vulnerabilities in computer technology are exploited by cybercriminals to invade people’s privacy, and steal people’s identity. We know that computers have no moral compass; they cannot make moral decisions for themselves. Essentially, people make moral decisions that affect others positively or negatively depending on how they use computer technology. Some of the biggest ethical issues facing people in the computing environment include privacy concerns on the web and identity theft. Privacy concerns...

    Read More

  • Stress: The Silent Disease

    1748 Words  | 4 Pages

    Stress is a normal physical response to events that make one feel threatened or upset one’s balance in some way. It comes to us naturally, when we need it. When working properly, it helps one stay focused, energetic, and alert. In emergency situations, stress can save people’s lives; such as with the fight to flight response. So in situations it comes upon us to benefit us and to be helpful. The stress response also helps one rise to meet challenges, and also helps keep one’s concentration. Although stress can be good, beyond a certain point, stress stops being helpful and starts causing major damage to a person’s health, mood, productivity, relationships, and their overall quality of life (www.helpg...

    Read More

  • Robots Essay

    1741 Words  | 4 Pages

    With the development of technology in the world, people are faced with many things they never saw and knew before. In this modern life, technology has affected a lot of people’s lives in many levels. Robots are considered as important products of technology. Robots were introduced by a writer, Karel Čapek, from the Czech word, robota, meaning “forced labor” or “serf”. Čapek used this word in his play, R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) which opened in Prague in January, 1921, a play in which an Englishman named Rossum mass-produced automata. The automata, robots, are meant to do the world’s work and to make a better life for humans; but in the end they rebel, wipe out humanity, and start a new race of intelligent life for the robots themselves (Asimov, 1984). Robot does not have a specific definition itself, every dictionary has a slightly different definition. “Deciding if a machine is or is not a robot is like trying to decide if a certain shade of greenish blue is truly blue or not blue,” said Carlo Bertocchini, the owner of RobotBooks.com. “Some people will call it blue while others will vote not blue,” (Branwyn, 2004). This essay will limit the meaning of robot as what defined in the Merriam Webster Dictionary (2004), robot is a machine that looks and acts like a human being, an efficient but insensitive person, a device that automatically performs especially repetitive tasks, and something guided by automatic controls. As the technology grows more modern each day, scientists and programmers are creating and improving the function of robots. Nevertheless, many people are still debating should robots be developed more and should robots be used in everyday life. I disagree that the further development of robots should be remain...

    Read More

More about National Security vs. the Right to Privacy

Open Document