Technology and the Invasion of Privacy

938 Words2 Pages

Many people are excited when it comes to the new technological advances and next-generation devices that are being invented and discovered. The world is advancing at an extremely fast rate; so fast that it's nearly impossible to keep up with the latest and greatest. The “latest and greatest”, however is not exactly what people think. Some of the more interesting inventions range from giant billion dollar global satellites that record and store your every text and call to the seemingly harmless front cameras on your iphones that could be on and recording at any given moment. This is such a crisis that a recent study from MIT by Gary T. Marx showed that technology has become so bad that “The ratio of what an individual knows about himself (or is capable of knowing ) compared to what a government official can obtain as far as personal information is shifting towards the official.” Just the sheer thought that someone has the ability to know more about you than yourself shows just what technology is capable of. The only solution to such a problem like this would be for the government to be public about every bit and byte of data they collect and provide the people a way to know when their information is being collected.
The reason for not going for a complete removal of government spying is simply a case of the ends justifying the means. Fortunately our government believes there is actually some genuine good that comes from invading everyone's personal information. One of the major government-proposed benefits is stopping terrorism. With just a few key words, an individual's text messages can be flagged and prioritized for review as a possible terrorism attempt. According to a recent 2013 survey from the Pew Research Center, 56% of Am...

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...s the people to have this right, while still being able to operate and perhaps prevent terrorism for real.

Works Cited

Marx, Gary T. "Privacy and Technology." Privacy and Technology. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
Nakashima, Ellen. "NSA Phone Record Collection Does Little to Prevent Terrorist Attacks, Group Says." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 12 Jan. 2014. Web. 01 Apr. 2014.
"Majority Views NSA Phone Tracking as Acceptable Anti-terror Tactic." Pew Research Center for the People and the Press RSS. Pew Research Center, 10 June 2013. Web. 1 Apr. 2014.
Avirgan, Jody. "A Running List of What We Know the NSA Can Do. So Far." The Brian Lehrer Show. New York Public Radio, 17 Jan. 2014. Web. 01 Apr. 2014.
Mick, Jason. "DailyTech - Audit: NSA Agents Broke the Law Nearly 3,000 Times from 2011 to 2012." DailyTech.com. DailyTech LLC, 16 Aug. 2013. Web. 29 Mar. 2014.

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