Government Surveillance vs Personal Privacy

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Today, individuals are sacrificing privacy in order to feel safe. These sacrifices have made a significant impact on the current meaning of privacy, but may have greater consequences in the future. According to Debbie Kasper in her journal, “The Evolution (Or Devolution) of Privacy,” privacy is a struggling dilemma in America. Kasper asks, “If it is gone, when did it disappear, and why?”(Kasper 69). Our past generation has experienced the baby boom, and the world today is witnessing a technological boom. Technology is growing at an exponential rate, thus making information easier to access and share than ever before. The rapid diminishing of privacy is leaving Americans desperate for change. Privacy allows an individual the power of seclusion in order to shut anything in particular out. In today’s society the term privacy has generated several different interpretations. Thus creating a large grey area as well as numerous debates as to whether or not privacy has been violated. According to Kasper, “If privacy is to be understood, it must be examined from the inside, that is, from the standpoint of the experience of its invasion” (Kasper 75). Privacy is a very broad term today due to many fairly new meanings. In order to truly understand the real meaning of privacy it must be examined at a deeper depth; That is, to understand the victim of the invasion and the consequences in which he or she has suffered. This grey area of privacy has expanded even further as of result of the technological era that is currently growing larger. Privacy was previously only understood dealing with humans’ body and physical interactions. Not too long ago social networking and the Internet did not exist making it extremely difficult for indi... ... middle of paper ... ...xford: Oxford University Press, Inc. 2011. Print. Kasper, Debbie. “The Evolution (Or Devolution) of Privacy.” Springer Vol. 20, No. 1 (2005): 69-92. Web. 22 Sept. 2015. Kaufman, Brett. “ACLU Files Lawsuit Challenging NSA’s Patriot Act Phone Surveillance.” ACLU.org. ACLU, 11 June. 2013. Web. 11 Nov. 2015. “The Government Is Spying on Us Through Our Computers, Phones, Cars, Buses, Streetlights, At Airports And On The Street, Via Mobile Scanners And Drones, Through Our Smart Meters, And In Many Other Ways.” WashingtonsBlog.com. Word Press, 23 Sept. 2013. Web. 30 Sept. 2015. Whitehead, John and Steven Aden. “Forfeiting “Enduring Freedom” for “Homeland Security”: A Constitutional Analysis of the USA Patriot Act and the Justice Department’s Anti-Terrorism Initiatives.” American University Law Review Vol. 51, No. 6 (June 2002): 1081-1133. Web. 2 Oct. 2015.

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