Despite the security of states and individuals privacy being in contradiction, every person needs his own privacy. Nowadays, in our socialized world we have become so distant to one another, such as even when you stay close to somebody you need to keep one meter distance. Safety of the current states appears to be more protected, but rather it has become even more fragile. This is due the fact that the expansion of technology in this last two decades has brought its benefits as well as its shortcomings. Nowadays, we are witnessing a worldwide debate which is about the issue of the government surveillance, which is done by a variety of different intelligent agencies. The increasing number of people in our planet is leading to various global threats such as: economic rivalry, politics, terrorism threats, and cyber-attacks, which has pushed many western governments to spy on their own citizens. In the first paragraph we stressed a saying which addresses our argument: man needs one meter privacy every time you approach him or her. Even if the state or government has to infringe the laws to find potential terrorists, our privacy must stay inviolable; this does not have a compromise.
Firstly, if a citizen is obliged to obey all laws in a society or state then that state institution is not allowed to violate the laws even when using the argument of citizen protection. It is not logical that millions of people are being spied during their phone conversations, or their personal data are gathered from various intelligence agencies for the sake of combating terrorism or even worse such as following their economic and political activities for the purpose of competition. With this opinion, we are not trying to contest the necessary surveillance of suspicious persons who may be a risk for our global society, but we are trying to tell that this survey could be accompanied with a court mandate. This debate is raised worldwide, especially after the emergence of the scandal from NSA regarding the surveillance that this government agency of the United States of America is doing to its citizens. This kind of surveillance was also conducted by the “Five Eyes”, — Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, and New Zealand. All of this was recently revealed from former contractor of CIA Edward Snowden.
The Term Paper on State and Local Government
What is Federalism? The United States has one of the most complicated forms of government in the world. With many levels and subdivisions, this form of government is called federalism. Within the United States, federalism is marked by a continuous change in the system of connections between the national, state, and local governments. At times, the different levels of government act independently ...
The second point in favor of the argument includes new technological achievements such as smartphones, laptops, and other gadgets which should not be used for any other purposes except for that thing they are destined, — surfing the internet, playing games, and so forth, without being monitored by the government. By this we mean that any kind of surveillance on these equipment outside the legal rules violates individual privacy, and this fact worries all the people who use the network.
The third point in favor of the argument, is related with the consequences that can originate by this surveillance if the data collected would be misused, — such as for blackmail or degradation of the other person’s personality, because the network, even with great many security protocols, is not safe. This perhaps is best proved in the Snowden case. The secrets extracted by him affected the reflection of two parties i.e. the governments as well as citizens for the fact that those secrets affected the personal dignities, and in some cases they also affected family issues. Instead of governments minimizing surveillance, the opposite is happening. This is better shown with what Google said in its last government transparency report “Governments want more data about Google users and want more content posted by Google users removed” (Claburn, par. 4).
The Term Paper on Should U.S. government reform its surveillance policy?
I was not interested in the privacy issue until former NSA contractor Edward Snowden publicly disclosed a large number of classified documents which are about U. S. government implemented massive surveillance program toward American citizens and foreign countries. This incident was viewed as the most significant leak in America history and of course it has caused sensation worldwide. However, ...
Moreover in a blog post, Google analyst Dorothy Chou said, “Government demands for user data have increased steadily since we first launched the Transparency Report.
In the first half of 2012, the period covered in the report, Chou says there were 20,938 inquiries from government organizations for information about 34,614 Google related accounts” (Claburn, par. 5).
The first point against the argument may include specific arguments of different governments about surveillance which discuss the need of preventives of global threats. The view of different states about terrorism has changed since the attack on the eleventh of September in the USA These kinds of risk have obliged different officials and diplomats in not saving money in a way to be more efficient in their duties. In this context, even the minor are not saved, such as: telephone conversations, internet communications, personal data and so forth. This can lead to what President Obama said “You can’t have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience,” (“Washington Post Digital”, par.4).
Secondly, the strongest argument of comprised governments in this peek stands in the fact that in the last couple of years we have had a line of success in the prevention of different risks of terrorist attacks. We can add other facts in these arguments such as: the murder of the terrorist Osama Bin laden, and the arrest of many other terrorists all around the world. These actions resulted in the prevention of possible attacks. President Obama for example, “highlighted limits to protect the privacy of U.S. citizens and said the surveillance has helped the government thwart terrorist attacks” (“Washington Post Digital”, par. 2).
It seems that these kind of actions in peeks have a kind of justification. Even though the above mentioned justifications sound like persuasive facts, they are nothing except fails of different state structures. I, as a free citizen, have my rights to require a court mandate before my house to get raid for every doubt. If such a thing is guaranteed by law, the same thing must be respected even when it comes to other aspects of privacy. Even more disturbing is the fact that all these surveillances have been made by the assigned governments in an insidious and unjustifiable manner.
The Essay on The growing problem of government surveillance
There’s a global war going on right now. I’m not talking about Syria, I’m talking about the war on the Internet. As the Internet has gotten bigger over the years, it has become a bigger interest for governments all over the world. Presidents and kings have a Twitter account now, and all the plans for budget spending are put on government websites. But it also has become a bigger problem for people ...
A scandal had to happen, like the case of Eduard Snowden, to make the citizens and governments open their eyes. In Conclusion, if we want to guarantee a good function of the democracy in the society, we need to follow some rules. In this case, the best rules should be the assigned laws, which would disassemble in details the report between citizens and its institutions. The organizations of a state should be very careful how they fulfill their duties, in terms of responsibility. After all, that is why they have been hired for, and why they spend the state’s budget from the taxpayer’s money. Effectiveness of the institutions which deal with the safety must be accompanied by a real effective measurability in the institutional line in order not to neglect potential threats as a result of which are created many problems nowadays. One of them is the topic we are talking about. If it is necessary to use personal data or in a way to violate the privacy, the government firstly must prepare a legal basis which should be accompanied with a proper debate about the limits that will be set in order that the initial principle to be respected; If someone near me, I need one meter distance.
Works Cited
Claburn, Thomas. “Google Says Government Surveillance Growing.” Informationweek Online (2012)ProQuest. Web. 9 Mar. 2014.
“Obama Defends Government’s Secret Surveillance Program.” The Washington PostJun 09 2013. ProQuest. Web. 9 Mar. 2014 .
