Aspects and implication of Cyberspace Surveillance Technologies

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The three most thought about aspects of a surveillance society, would be; from one side it protects and monitors, but on the other hand in order to achieve its protection functions, certain boundaries of privacy are crossed. Some would argue that it is governments demand for more power over people, a disciplinary technique; the fact that people are more likely to behave if they had known they had been under a certain amount of supervision. But not all of the time can this be beneficial to them; questions are asked of whether the success of it, rationalize for existence radical surveillance technologies. As much as it acts as a nation protector, and crime preventer, it is also, on a massive scale, a privacy invader. In this essay I will examine some of these aspects and theories that justify their disadvantages from their advantages.

The purpose of surveillance as Lyon explained, is: “the focused, systematic and routine attention to personal details for purposes of influence, management, protection to direction” (2007: p.14) this describes a more of national secure safety matter, then what he had supposed in his 1998 description of “watching others’ activities as a means of monitoring and supervising them” this here, describes a more a simple service, people are being watched purely for the purpose of monitoring and supervising, such as a prison watcher or an exam monitor. However in since the happening of September, 11 of 2001, surveillance on individual has became more of a formal national security issue. Moving away from the notion of specific should be targeted, to a notion of everyone is suspected and therefore targeted. Post nine eleven, “war against terrorism” has become a major excuse or reason for national security to k...

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...ivilians fears over the paranoia of under consent surveillance and feel that their freedom is under consent restriction.

Works Cited

Foucault, M. (1979) Discipline and Punish. London: Penguin.

Dreyfus, H and Rabinow, P. (1982) Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Lyon, D. (1988) The Information Society: Issues and Illusions. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Lyon, D. (2003) Surveillance after September 11. Cambridge: Polity

Orwell, G. (1948) Nineteen Eighty Four. New York: New American Library

Links:

BBC. (2005) “Shot man not connected to bombing” July 23. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4711021.stm

“Cookies” http://epic.org/privacy/internet/cookies/

BBC. (2005) “Full text of Tony Blair's speech” September 27. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4287370.stm

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