Associated Content: Privacy and Monitoring in the USA

Privacy and Monitoring in the USA

The USA Patriot Act and Laws Regarding Privacy and Monitoring in the United States

By D W

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2042805/privacy_and_monitoring_in_the_usa.html?cat=17

Takeaways

USA Patriot Act

Privacy and Monitoring Laws

Ethics and Technology

The United States of America has been reducing privacy levels drastically as part of its anti-terrorism campaign. The USA has passed a law known as the USA Patriot Act, which allows criminal and intelligence investigations to go anywhere that Americans used to believe was private. This law allows investigators to break into homes and examine objects without consent, and even examine an individual's personal records. This law can overrule state and federal privacy laws, and is directly linked to the FBI. This is an example of the power of information shifting to the government, and this means that increased use of, and improved, investigation technology will contribute to increasing levels of power being attributed to the US government over it's citizens. If the government keeps this type of action up, then it will soon begin to develop a lot of dominance over it's citizens in the form of restricted information. If citizens wish to maintain any level of privacy, they will need to begin standing up for their own personal privacy rights before they let it's increasingly restrictive government from manipulating and controlling it's people. It is unlikely that many Americans want to see prying monitoring technology end up being installed in private locations just to feed information to it's hungry government, only then to not have access to any of the personal information themselves.

So why not let everyone have access to the receiving end of monitoring technology? It is possible to argue that if all the data that is gathered from this technology was made public and accessible to everyone, that it would be morally acceptable. Should anyone behave in a way that is not acceptable for everyone (at least of a certain age) to witness, even if it is in a private location? The answer to this is a definite no. If everyone had the ability to openly spy on each other, then it would turn into a society where those who had the most attention would be ostracized while those who are fortunate enough get ignored can begin to gain an advantage simply by not being noticed, and likely get off with rule-breaking and criminal activity.

This would lead then lead to lack of efficiency, lack of innovation, dis-utility, and even some inequality because those who are simply more commonly spied on, likely because they are beginning to get ahead, will lose an edge in our competitive society. If human and informational monitoring was reduced only to public areas, then it would be much more ethical because people could simply operate outside of the public eye if they so desired. Still, many of these same issues still exist, with the wealthier members of society being the only ones who can afford the necessary private property, and the poorer being the ones who need to use public services and are forced to conform more strongly to the legal system of the society.

However, many advantages also exist to public monitoring, especially in situations where the nature of the law (or desired restricted/encouraged behaviors) exists in and of itself because the location is public. Good examples are freeways and public intersections, where people simply must adhere to the rules in order for the service to function. Public monitoring in an area like this can only be deemed ethical because all it does is encourage more organized, beneficial behavior in a highly publicized location.

The only downside is that they must access this public location in order to get from one private location to another, but with the monitoring it still becomes a more organized area that should eliminate free-riders, dangerous law-breakers, and unwanted public behavior in a place that everyone has to be. Some semi-public places (such as a hospital or school) may want to reduce monitoring and respect more privacy rights because of the reality that patients have little choice in the matter, as they require the public services to function, and have to spend much of their time at the public locations whether or not they are being monitored.