From the Economist-
"Two days after the attacks on New York and Washington, Frank Asher, a drug dealer turned technology entrepreneur, decided to examine the data amassed on 450m people by his private data-service company, Seisint, to see if he could identify possible terrorists. After giving each person a risk score based on name, religion, travel history, reading preferences and so on, Mr Asher came up with a list of 1,200 “suspicious” individuals, which he handed to the FBI. Unknown to him, five of the terrorist hijackers were on his list."
Data is the drug of the information age. To what use should it be set?
25 comments:
Firstly- where is Big Brother's mustache?
Secondly- that makes me a little bit nervous. Yes, we'd like to assume that those are safe places we put our life's important info. Who gave this guy (an ex drug dealer) the right to say, "Well, hey, let's go find terrorists! Oh...this guy....and this one....and this one...and....maybe this one?"
So, yeah. His best interest is the United States. And, yeah, he did find five terrorists. Then the question becomes, what is morally acceptable in survelliance, or, to what extent are people willing to sacrifice privacy for saftey?
If you've nothing to hide, who cares? Me thinks thou doth protest too much. This theory certainly comes into play, but it isn't necessarily terrorist activities that people are hiding. It could be something as innocent as a foot fetish, or something as dangerous as murder. How do people draw the line? And there will ALWAYS be ways to bypass whatever system they lay down to distuinguish.
This is a learning process, and people need to know and respect that the country is doing what it thinks best to keep you alive. Am I an advocate? To an extent. But it always comes down to the government should not, and can not, make laws regarding morals.
Sarah- did you read the ENTIRE article?
I have now, and I don't change my opinion much. I would like to revise my last paragraph slightly, to read:
'This is a learning process. Just as people did not know what to think about the Internet, about Blackberries, about energy drinks, they do not know what to think about these new types of surveillance. And it is for everyone. Years ago, people didn't have the internet to tell them what the government was up to, now they do (and they can read up on it in things like TheEconomist.com). Adjustments must be made. The government needs to adjust to the age of information, security has to adjust to the growing rate and intelligence of hackers, and the public needs to adjust to...something. This is such a tricky issue. Awareness, clearly, is on the rise. Do I agree with surveillance? To an extent. Do I find it amusing that Sean Frazier was pulled temporarily from a flight? Slightly. Obviously, there are glitches.'
I assure you, I've read the entire thing, word for word now.
That is kind of scary. If you think about it they could probably see what a person is doing every day by looking at satellites. What even scarier is any one can be doing it because you can go to google click in someones address and get a picture of what a person house looks like from above. Now all they need is to launch something that would be able to see through all the objects and privacy could be a major problem.
Although the government "claims" that they have prevented several terrorist plots, there is a limit to which they can invade our privacy. Governments have the obligation to protect their people, but they do not have the right to put their nose into peoples' personal affairs. The government can do anything it wants regarding its own property like setting up cameras in public places and requiring ID cards, but once they cross over into our homes they have crossed the line. I mean if they have any belief that someone is involved in a terrosrist plot, then they can go and monitor the suspests' telephone calls and internet activity and all that stuff they do since by doing so, they possibly save lives. But by invading everyones right to privacy, the government is both going against their own policies and wasting a lot of manpower. Of the 400 million people, how many are terrorsits? Not too many.
How far are we allowing government surveillance see what we do? Is it conflicting our privacy too much are not enough? Ever heard the expression,"Knowledge is power." From the article, the way we collect data today would be used as an "instrument of fear" for dictators in the past. The US government's alibi for the increase of surveillance is to protect the people from terrorists . Having information on the people can be used to protect them from foreign enemies, but it can also distort the freedoms people diserve to have. Now, people dont care that the government has some sort of eye watching you whether its video cameras or credit cards tracking what you paid for and where you were as long as there safe,but its taking away there privacy which shouldn't be gambled like a pocker chip. Under the Patriot Act, made right after the attack from 9/11, the FBI and other agencies where given the ability to look through individual's personal data from internet providers and phone companies. It also lets them tap phone calls and private e-mails. Are we worried that our government will abuse its power and infringe on the peoples personal matters or have they already.
The new technoliges being used to collect personal information has both pros and cons. These new technologies are helping find more terrorists, and preventing more attacks to occur. But, many people's privacy is being abused. I know many would say if you have nothing to hide, who cares, but in reality if you were the one whose phone was tapped you would be upset. To use these new technologies effectively, I believe a new system needs to be created, in order to protect an indivuals "right" to privacy, and to be able to find terrorists and stop them from performing attacks.
It scares the heck out of me. "Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely"- Lord Acton
My sister once told me that if you said "President" or "bomb" in a phone call the government will arrest you. I don't know how legitimate this claim was because she was in eigth grade, but what if someone innocent called her best friend and said, " You made class President, you're the bomb." I think that government should be allowed to tap in to people's privacy if there is any suspicion held against them. If not, I think it is an invasion of privacy and immoral. Some of American's simplest rights are to , "life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness." I think tapping into people's computers and telephones is the denial of liberty. If someone is under suspicion and there is reason to investigate, then I think it is okay to use technology to help find terrorists.
Already the government is tapping into our phone conversations. i believe we the people have the right to privacy. they already have servallance cameras in public places and require ID checks but when it comes to invadeing peoples homes that crosses the line. if the government has evidence that a person could be a terrorist then, go ahead and monitor there phone calls and internent activities. by doind this they would be saving lives.
some people might the arguement the if you have nothing to hide then who cares. and that is true. but who is to say that if there phones arent being tapped.
there are terrorists in the world but a majority of them are not.
The more technology is improved to collect information, hopefully the safer we will be from terrorist attacks. However, there will always be problems with innocent people seeming like terrorists based on their information. In mosts cases, it is true that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about. As criminals and terrorists come up with more advanced crimes and plots, the new technology will be needed to counter it.
I guess it would get a lot of people ticked off if someone was watching their every move, but why would it really matter if you weren't doing anything wrong? I think this should only seriously scare the people who are committing crimes. I think if they can really do all of this, it may be helpful. preventing terrorism over the idea of one being nervous they are watched in the shower, looking up porn, or even cheating on a spouse. the government's not gonna be too interested unless you are a threat to your country/community.
though everyone is entitled to privacy there is a limit to how much privacy someone has. not only can the government find out information on you easily put anyone is the world as well. technology has expanded that your every move is recorded. there are surveillance cameras every where. everyone knows that their life is being recorded somewhere but the thought doesn't scare them, instead the thought of not being watched scared them. because they believe that they are being watched for their protection. they feel safe.
wow. just for the record, i don't want anybody predicting my actions before ido--that's just scary. The fact that some government agency could know me better than i know myself is discomforting. I have never read the bible, but that reference to bar codes being "the mark of the beast without which no man can buy of sell" is really interesting...I mean, they are ok for clothing and such, but when we start getting into genetic barcodes like that "smartwater spray"; that'w when i get scared. Terrorism is a problem because it makes people, well, terrified. The fact that the government could be watching me at this moment terrifies me--its the same thing!
the US surveillance system is very hard to judge. yes, its scary that the government could be watching your every move and listen to whatever words you spit out, but it doesn't seem right to criticize them. i know im happy without another 9/11 incident since 2001. i in fact wish that some of these surveillance tactics would have been used earlier.
of course there is an extent to which the government can go until they are really invading our privacy inappropriately. but i do believe that the information and technology used today by the government can make us safer.
I think that coolecting data about people such as what they buy is definitely civil and helpful in the grand scheme of things. It is for the welbeing of the public that they do such things in order to keep us as safe as possible. But as for the RFIDs, thats a little over the top. The article states that "some people want everyone to be implanted with RFID's, as the answer to identy theft". THIS idea, however, is not civil. RFIDs can come with a whole slurr of promblems such as price, and.. stalking celebrities?
ps- last year for NYLC i went to washington d.c.. when we visited the white house, a few kids and i stood outfront and noticed a security agent on the roof. one of the kids asked aloud, "i wonder if that guy can hear what we're saying". He waved.
I think that the government should by all means store information available to it. This may include travel, business, and limited information on internet and telephone use. This information can be used to track down or provide evidence against suspects.
It's a bit ridiculous, however, to be tracking emails with certain keywords, or to tap the phone calls of someone who checked a specific book out of a library. Dr. Farina once told me that the school will not actively look at internet profiles of kids in the school, but will if they receive complaints and such. I think governments can parallel this policy-- they shouldn't use their cameras and email reading supermysterycomputers to actively seek out problems, but they should have the data available when it's needed.
In this day and age it is possible for anyone with the proper resources to acquire such information, despite ones best attempts it still is rather obvious that the old saying: "Knowledge is power" holds true in this day. The more data a person has on someone the more they can try to influence there life, in the end the data can be priced above almost all other goods in the market.
in the increasing technoloigally advanced world we live in the amount of survelience via technology based methods has varying effects. on the one hand it allows the government to survey and locate threats and prevent attacks. on the same token to prevent terrorism and conduct proper survelience certain civil librities in privacy must be sacraficed. the sacrafice of one for the betterment of teh nation.
The article makes some really interesting points. But overall it comes back to how the government denies the right to privacy to its citizens. How the British government controls the life of its citizens is disturbing. Everyone can understand that the govenment is doing to protect natioanl security, but to what degree?. Tapping into people's phone calls and e-mails is a little too drastic. People don't seem to mind it now because a lot of people don't know about it, if everyone was informed of how their privacy is manahed the story would be completely different. Out of all U.S citizens being spied on, how many are really terrorists? In my opinion, the measures that have been taken are a bit too extreme, many may argue this, but to what point is the government willing to abuse the right of privacy to the citizens?
What's scary to me is the fact that private individuals in this country can have so much power and the freedom to exercise it against us. I don't feel comfortable leaving my personal data (and thus my future) in the hands of greedy amoral ex-drug dealers. And who could be expected to? Private individuals, no matter how much influence they wield should not be allowed to turn us in, en masse, to the government, without directly witnessing a crime. In a sense, the government is allowing us to incriminate ourselves, because now we can never be sure who is watching us.
I think it's very scary that the government has such power to zoom in on our lives so closely. The picture is a reference to the book 1984, which is a mockery of Communism. In the book, the lives of the people are monitored and always being observed. This book was a warning, trying to prevent other countries from falling into Communism. Are we now following in the footsteps? I think the government is crossing the line of governmental protection and the privacy of the people. They need to back off a little bit and find other ways to attempt to track down terrorists.
I believe that people would get mad if they had every move they did being watched my the government. but if the government does this the country would be a lot more safer. they arent going to be interested in things you do that arent a threat to anyone else or your country. with the government watching people i think the country would be a lot safer.
what Asher did is like a sweet magic trick, impressive but impratical.
if that method is used to track down possible threats against society, then judging my my library history i might as well be serial-killer in the making.
i think the thing they do in England is great with the talking cameras. i'd love to be peeing on a wall somewhere and have a camera yell at me... what's it gonna do if i don't stop? anyway, the other new surveillance technology is pretty scary
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