What really is privacy? Is the government controlling how we live or do we really have freedom? It has come to a point where people have started to guard themselves thinking someone or something is watching them. For example, in a working environment at a firm we tend to stay away from sites that are inappropriate and not meant to be seen during working hours. Whether someone is watching us we do not really know but always assume that were under surveillance.
The PBS Frontline documentary “Spying on the Home Front” doesn’t really say anything that we don’t already know. The government has made us believe almost nothing is private and everything you do can be traced. London for example records everything which the government out front shows you there is no privacy. In America, the government has put society into a “prisoner’s dilemma”. Prisons were set up in a way where the guard would be in the middle and the cells all around him. The guard can look through the glass and see the prisoners but the prisoners could not see the guard. With this concept, you would never really know whether the guard was there or not and would resort into you guarding yourself. The same has happen in society where we act a certain way because someone is always watching us.
In the documentary it talked about how the data collected from all the people who came to Vegas during New Years was used for two years and then deleted. In class we have learned that even if you delete data for example from an email, the information is still on the servers connected. The FBI still has all the records it should not have in the first place of all the civilians who came to Vegas. Simply saying you deleted data does not vanish it forever.
I started off by saying, “what is privacy”. To end it off i would like to say how much privacy do we really have left and how long will it really last.
I agree with your approach and the way you feel about individuals privacy being treated as if it were of no value. To answer that last question you asked at the end of your post, I believe that if the government does not change its routine and recondition the way its handling the prevention of another terrorist attack without violating citizens privacy, automacy and democracy; we will be citizen’s with no voice, nor any rights.
maybe my letters are heading to Steve C!