Friday, January 28, 2011
Abuse of Surveillance Technology
In my first blog I mentioned how surveillance technology can be used for good things such as catching criminals, preventing burglaries, etc., but it can also be abused. Privacy can be a huge issue. There have been complaints about the government listening into people's personal phone calls or even hiding cameras. Even using surveillance can risk leaking out important information that others should not find out. A lot of surveillance even violates people's right to privacy. Bussinesses must be careful with their curveillance technology to make sure it does not violate someone's privacy rights or there could be conseqences.
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I agree, surveillance technology is very scary these days. For the most part, you have no idea where or when someone can be watching or listening to you. A lot of the time the government will pass it off as security reasons, but I feel that this is not justified.
ReplyDeleteI agree that government surveillance is an issue. No doubt. I was doing research for a project on the origins of al-Qaeda for my philosophy class and I was planning on using al-Jazzera (Islamic fundamentalist radio in Afghanistan) as a source. I was going to use the site and I was nervous that I might be put on some government watch-list or something. It was paranoid, but the simple fact that I was nervous shows the prevelance of government surveillance in today's society. I decided not to use it for research because it is obviously not credible.
ReplyDeleteI also agree about the security issues that surveillance technologies can create. With the Patriot Act the government can more easily use these technologies to listen in on phone calls or do other things that I would consider an invasion of privacy. The good news is that the other day Congress did not extensions on some major provisions in the Patriot Act. Hopefully this is a sign that the Government does take the privacy of its citizens seriously.
ReplyDeleteI feel like a good bit of surveillance technologies allow us the choice of heightened security, in some contexts (think airport securities..) at the expense of privacy (think Patriot Act wiretapping). It's difficult to circumvent listening in on legitimate traffic, or invading privacy unnecessarily in exchange for the few instances of chatter related to a real threat. I have to wonder whether this actually makes us feel any safer.
ReplyDeleteSurveillance technology can be scary sometimes, especially with how evolved it is in the modern day. At my old work place, our supervisor ended up tapping all of our phones because he was paranoid about what my department was saying about him, clearly he was a bit insane. I think it all depends to what extent the surveillance is. I have nothing against putting cameras up here and there for SECURITY purposes. But when your main reason is to spy on people, then it becomes a huge issue.
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