Brian Trent’s Article, Technology and Tomorrow: A Challenge to Liberty

The United States is not surveillance society, but the government’s ability to collect data and “spy” on its people has reached an all time high in the digital age. Americans must continue to discuss and debate the government’s ability and limits in monitoring its citizens in the modern day. ()

Surveillance is not a new thing. In fact, espionage, tracking, and sleuthing were part of society ever since 5000 B.C. But in the rise of the modern era, the idea of surveillance in the public eye serves as a controversial topic of discussion. People everywhere complain about the existence of security cameras, government tracking, and the right to privacy. Such problems, however, are not due to the sudden discovery of surveillance, but the modern abuse of it. Seeing the disastrous effects of over surveillance from George Orwell’s 1984, the public rightfully fears societal deterioration through modern surveillance abuse portrayed in Matthew Hutson’s “Even Bugs Will Be Bugged” and the effects of such in Jennifer Golbeck’s “All Eyes On You”. The abuse of surveillance induces the fear of discovery through the invasion of privacy, and ensures the omnipresence of one’s past that haunt future endeavors, to ultimately obstruct human development and the progress of society overall.

Many Americans do not realize that at any time of the day the government could be observing their “private” lives. On the other hand, some individuals have predicted the government would develop a form of constant surveillance, like George Orwell who forecasted a futuristic government, which used technology as a relentless eye on the members of the society in the novel 1984. 1984 was correct, to an extent, in predicting that the government would increase their usage of technology to constantly observe their people, whether in public or their private homes.

As a growing topic of discussion, privacy in our society has stirred quite some concern. With the increase of technology and social networking our standards for privacy have been altered and the boundary between privacy and government has been blurred. In the article, Visible Man: Ethics in a World Without Secrets, Peter Singer addresses the different aspects of privacy that are being affected through the use of technology. The role of privacy in a democratic society is a tricky endeavor, however, each individual has a right to privacy. In our society, surveillance undermines privacy and without privacy there can be no democracy.

“The invasion of privacy — of others’ privacy but also our own, as we turn our lenses on ourselves in the quest for attention by any means — has been democratized.” (Walter Kirn). Kirn points out that a citizen can serve as a ‘little brother’ who watches or shares the private moments of another. Citizens not only fear the powerful government, but also their neighbors, siblings, classmates, etc. “With those children, he thought, that wretched woman must lead a life of terror. Another year, two years, and they would be watching her night and day for symptoms of unorthodoxy.” (Orwell, 24). The citizen's neighbors, coworkers, spouse, and children are all potential spies, and surveillance is

Government surveillance in the past was not a big threat due to the limitations on technology; however, in the current day, it has become an immense power for the government. Taylor, author of a book on Electronic Surveillance supports, "A generation ago, when records were tucked away on paper in manila folders, there was some assurance that such information wouldn 't be spread everywhere. Now, however, our life stories are available at the push of a button" (Taylor 111). With more and more Americans logging into social media cites and using text-messaging devices, the more providers of metadata the government has. In her journal “The Virtuous Spy: Privacy as an Ethical Limit”, Anita L. Allen, an expert on privacy law, writes, “Contemporary technologies of data collection make secret, privacy invading surveillance easy and nearly irresistible. For every technology of confidential personal communication…there are one or more counter-technologies of eavesdropping” (Allen 1). Being in the middle of the Digital Age, we have to be much more careful of the kinds of information we put in our digital devices.

Technological surveillance is used in a wide field of areas from wiretapping, hacking, bugging, electronic tracking, video surveillance and so on, but, “when used by the government, technological surveillance creates a particularly dramatic threat to the privacy of individual citizens” (p. 354), although this is uncertain to the government if it is indeed goes against citizen’s privacy. Technology advances so quickly, that the law cannot keep up with the swift changes.

In this paper I will be talking about government surveillance. The government pries through social media sites to gain information about United States citizens. I have become reliant and careless on social media. My birthdays is posted on social media, location, and school. Cell phones calls have been invaded by NASA as well. Internet searches are one of the governments way of tracking habits and patterns of potential suspects. I use technology for almost every school assignment, so avoiding technology in this generation is practically inevitable. Since the release of the government being guilty of surveilling its citizens, many citizens vocalized their stance or opinion. While some citizens claim they cannot function with knowing that they

In this article Evans summarized privacy law in the American workplace, and also scholar Mathew Finkin painted a dramatic picture of the surveillance under which many many American employee work. Moreover, Finkin mentioned in this article that 34% of American employee are monitored continuously with regard to their email and internet usage privacy. In addition, He also pointed that The problem of employee privacy and productivity becomes more significant as the boundaries between formal and informal places of work blur. Employee monitoring can also be conducted in other ways that were not possible until very recently. For example, some cellular telephones have built in global positioning systems that enable employers to track the

The use of technology that has the capability to study the lives of individuals needed to be limited but also had uses that could benefit society. The Patriot act was created after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. “Those who wanted intelligence agencies to apply for search warrants like other law-enforcement agencies (Constitutional Rights Foundation).” The use of warrants has helped protect us from creating a world similar to Big Brothers by limiting U.S. agencies from spying on people without probable cause or the use of a warrant. Technology has also been limited by many lifestyle changes throughout the years. An average person owns a new technology allowing the ability for them to be watched to increase. “After the passage of FISA and subsequent laws, citizens have not been given the same protection with regards to electronic surveillance. (Stanford).” Although limitations have been put in action the ability for the high-ranking officials to watch the majority of the population is occurring. Many law enforcements sometimes ignore the privacy laws, and don’t apply for warrants. The world of Big Brother is occurring and the capabilities out way the limitations greatly, creating a system where the population is now under the

The report puts forward some questions about how mass surveillance is affecting our country, and where to draw the line when it comes to watching our population. The main aim of this article is to shed the light on how far the government is taking public surveillance so that people can know exactly how private their lives are, and make a

George Orwell wrote 1984, a novel suggested by the year 1984, the world could fall un-der the rule of a totalitarian regime that would monitor its’ citizens every move. Our “surveil-lance Society” threatens civil liberties in a way that mirrors Orwell’s fears. The recent profusion of surveillance techniques constitutes a threat to civil liberties.

We live in a world of technology. It surrounds us like a cloud or a blanket of information and connectivity. Every day governments around the world are using more private surveillance tactics. The US government is heavily tapping into this cloud of information and the public 's privacy is being reduced and we are inching closer and closer to constant, total surveillance. In George Orwell’s novel 1984, those who aren’t living on the street live under constant surveillance. Those fortunate enough to live in one of the decrepit apartment buildings sacrifice their privacy and their freedom, while working for the government that controls them. Telescreens monitor everything, while people are forced to live in awful conditions.

Surveillances and interceptions for the purpose of security has been a huge debate for many decades in regards to whether or not it causes harm to privacy. In this day and age, public surveillance can be found almost everywhere from street corner all the way to atm machine. According to the statistic provide by CCS international, an average person in New York City could be spotted on camera at an alarming rate of 73-75 times a day (Murphy, 2002). In addition to this, communication interception such as wiring, telephone, mobile phone or even email is consider as privacy invasion, and it has been carry out mainly by the government agency (NSA) and corporations discretely. The problem to this issue is that although people know that they “could” be watched, they have no idea for what purpose will the record be use for. Many people strongly believe that they should be free to do whatever they want, and although security camera is necessary in certain places, it is not necessary everywhere. Being in constant surveillance is similar to being in confinement, and that people are losing their freedom of being in private due to these

Recent scandals involving the NSA and reports about the government’s use of surveillance technology have called the current ethics of maintaining public security into question. These events have caused us to ask what our privacy is worth in an age of global terrorism. Orwell’s warning that totalitarian regimes’ reliance on surveillance and the invasion of privacy to restrict individual freedom and endanger citizens is still relevant today. Although the invasion of privacy is sometimes necessary to ensure the security of citizens, it may cause people to question the legitimacy of their government’s programs surrounding surveillance.