I think in general it’s not good to have the government watching and recording us. “Big Brother” can lead to censorship, limit free speech, and limit personal liberties. People aren’t as likely to speak their mind if Big Brother is watching, especially if what you’re saying is critical of the government. I personally do not think I have much to hide but I think it’s a problem and am concerned that it’s becoming more intrusive and more widespread. If I know Trump were reading my texts, for example, or had the ability to see them, that would keep me from speaking freely. While I do recognize the security benefits of having surveillance everywhere and being able to solve or prevent crimes or terrorism etc., I do not think it is acceptable to be under constant surveillance. The government should not surveil people without their knowledge, like in the NSA/Snowden case we discussed. In my opinion, we cannot be truly free when we are under constant surveillance.
It is difficult to draw the line between privacy and security, while I don’t think we should be under constant surveillance, I do see the security benefit to having eyes almost everywhere to potentially prevent crimes or terror attacks. However, when this technology and constant watching leads to something like locating illegal immigrants, not considering the other issues with it I mentioned before, it crosses the line of not leaving us with privacy. I think the government’s next step would be to be more transparent about how we are being monitored and what their security justification is for it. I think it’s unrealistic to expect the government to stop all surveillance but being more open about the benefits of it could be beneficial.
I think technology companies are responsible for protecting their users’ privacy. Since private companies are not owned or run by the government, they shouldn’t be giving our information to them. I think these companies should have practices in place to prevent harmful activities on their platforms, programs or initiatives for anti-bullying or anti-terror that kick those users off their platforms or have some monitoring for harmful things like these. While this could be some type of surveillance from companies on their users, they are private companies and users are willingly signing up for their products/services. However, in the case of government surveillance, we do not sign a terms and conditions agreement like we do with most technologies. Tech companies may have vagues statements about data collection but they at least give some type of disclaimer to users while the government does not. The engineers and developers at tech companies must consider their own privacy when developing products. Would they want this data about themselves to be recorded or monitored. I think government officials making surveillance decisions should ask themselves similar questions. Putting themselves in the shoes of the people they are watching, imagining themselves as an illegal immigrant and being deported because you were found on a security camera, they could make better decisions centered around personal privacy.
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