[MyArete]

How do you feel about being watched by the government and corporations? You've likely experienced corporate monitoring of some form. If you've ever used Google's traffic, map-overlay you've seen cell phone monitoring in action (with cellphone gps, they determine how fast you are moving). Internet adds are not directed at a general audience but at you (e.g. a suggested purchase at Amazon). Seems harmless. In fact, it is useful, not only to the corp. but to you as well. But what about the other type of monitoring? The government type. We are told our facebook pages, blog posts (this site too), and overseas phone calls are recored for our safety. The US Patriot Act enabled a lot of this, they are “looking for terrorist”. There are a few agencies doing this:

United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team
Central Intelligence Agency
Department of Homeland Security
Federal Bureau of Investigation
National Security Agency
National Reconnaissance Office
Defense Intelligence Agency
National Geospatial Intelligence Agency

And, as if they weren't enough, universities have added their resources. The University of Arizona has a project called the Dark Web Project. This project claims to “systematically collect and analyze all terrorist-generated content on the Web.” They also have some pretty cool stuff to get around internet proxies and TOR software, which, they claim, can determine who is actually posting anonymously online. And. Security cameras are going up all over major cities across the US (and world wide), look around. Facial recognition software (in its infancy) will be linked to online databases. It is said that this will be used to pick out wanted people from a crowed city street, or maybe even see them inside a vehicle.

Some shrug this off choosing not to care. Others think this monitoring is needed for safety and provide seemingly sound arguments for it. Other still, claim this monitoring is a violation of our privacy. They too provide, what seems, sound arguments (a lot of Orwellian points are made). So again, how do you feel about being watched?

[WILLOW]

If one thinks about it. What would anyone need privacy for? Most people just get in their cars, go to work, do their job, come home and then cook, then watch tv and just go to sleep and do it all over the next day. Then every once in a while go out to get their car fixed or go shopping. As long as one doesn't see themselves on tv or the internet living their life then I think that it is a good measure for safety.

[Woose]

It troubles me that one could write off the importance of privacy so easily. Would it really not trouble you if someone were watching what you were doing every minute of every day?

Privacy is typically seen as a fundamental human right for a reason. There are large implications that can be drawn from having no privacy in exchange for seemingly "ultimate" security. With constant surveillance, we may be 'safer' in a sense, but at the same time we'd would no longer be free in another. In fact, in the wrong hands, we as citizens wouldn't be safe from the very people that are supposed to protect us. I won't go too much into it, but this blog entry explains it very well. (http://www.wired.com/politics/securi.../2006/05/70886)

This is not to say we should have absoute privacy and extremely limited security though. But it is important to stay vigilant when sacrificing freedom for security. (The book 1984 is an amazing example of the importance of this)

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely."