American Rights to Privacy

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American Rights to Privacy

In 1787, the constitution was born. The constitution has been America’s guideline to the American way of life. Our US constitution has many points in it to protect America and it’s people from an overpowered government, our economy, and ourselves. The only thing the constitution doesn’t directly give us, is our right to privacy, and our right to privacy has been a big concern lately courtesy of the National Security Agency (NSA).(#7) Although our constitution doesn’t necessarily cover the privacy topic, it does suggest that privacy is a given right. Some people say that the right to privacy was so obvious, that our founding fathers didn’t even feel the need to make a point about it.(#9) It also didn’t help that they probably didn’t know that we would have the technology we do today.
There have been many laws made and recommended for our privacy. Some save our rights to privacy and others allow government spying.(#5) The Patriot Act was formed in 2001 to prevent terrorism, which allows the government to spy on law-abiding citizens, just to make sure they don’t do anything suspicious.(#10) Many Americans argue that this is unconstitutional, and that spying is against the law and should be for the government as well. Then there are the people that really don’t care or agree with the government. Safety is a big concern among the American people, so if the government says they are doing something to protect them, people will believe it, even if the government is stretching the truth. The only thing that the constitution directly states about privacy is against unwarranted search and seizure, which kind of counters the Patriot’s Act.(#5) The patriot act does allow the NSA to search your laptop, phone, o...

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... something like that into the terms and conditions, But the concern for more privacy laws is approaching. A certain law may exist in the future that does not allow companies to put anything they want in the agreement. Most big corporations probably wouldn’t want to do that anyway, because people will not buy into it when the word spreads. But major websites like Facebook give away your privacy, and it is perfectly legal when you agree to join the website. (#11)
In the massive online world we have today, our privacy is something that is not too hard to breach. I believe people in the US still have privacy, but it has been breached by ourselves. Social media, phones, internet, and other things have been able to give up our information with our knowing, but didn’t think anything of it. Although people fight for our privacy, we have really had it all along.

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