Privacy And The World TodayEssay Preview: Privacy And The World TodayReport this essayFinally, the endless grind of working for Smith Co. is finally over. For the past forty years of your life you saved your money, built your credit and now it is finally the time to retire. To celebrate this long awaited day, you stroll down to Virginia Bobs Chevrolet dealer and feast your eyes on one of those bright cherry red convertible corvettes. Walking around anxiously, a salesman spots you and begins to further excite your already decided mind. He asks if you would like to test drive your dream car. Instinctively you reply, stealing the keys from his hands you climb in the car and listen to the exhilarating purr of the engine. Shortly, you return from your perfect test drive and hurry into his office to sign the papers and take your new toy home. Like a little kid tearing through the wrapping paper on Christmas, you frantically fill out your paper work and write a check for your down payment. The salesman leaves his office for a minute to finalize the sale. You sit in his chair rocking back and forth waiting for him return with your new keys. The slow seconds pass and finally he returns to his office. He sits down and says “Sorry Mr. Your credit has been declined.” “Impossible” you say, “I have never missed a payment in my life.” He tells you to go home straighten it out with the bank and come back tomorrow. You drive your current jalopy to the bank, and angrily push through the doors. After hours of dealing with your banker and the automated telephone lady at the credit firm, you finally discover you are a victim of identity theft. How you wonder, you had always been so careful you never bought anything on line and shredded all of your sensitive documents. Eventually, you retract the abuses to your credit and go down to the dealership to buy what should have been yours earlier.
Over 9.3 million people a year, just like the person above, fall victim to identity theft. In many situations, the fault is not even the victims. Private companies, the government and other organizations are responsible for deliberately or accidentally distributing private information to irresponsible persons. For example, the Virginia legislature passed a law publishing final divorce decrees, marriage licenses, name change documents, wills, lists of heirs, tax liens, child support, enforcement liens, student loan liens among many other documents online for the public to view for a small monthly fee. What was so shocking about these documents is they contained the social security numbers, minor children’s names, mother’s maiden names, date of births, signatures or financial or account loan numbers uncensored. Betty Ostergren, a personal privacy advocate, reported this information in “The Online Records Issue in Virginia” and within two weeks the state took the information off of the Internet. (Leach)
However, the abuses of privacy stretch far beyond negligent or deliberate distributions of private data by companies and the government. The government is also responsible for over extending its power and prying into an individuals life without the individuals notification. Especially, after 9/11 the government has rallied public fear and harnessed it to pass legislation, such as the patriot act, that enable them to invade our privacy at an unprecedented level. In my opinion, the United States government and other organizations have no authority to violate our privacy by recording our information without our permission or overstepping boundaries into an individuals private life.
One might ask the question, what is privacy? According to the Mariam-Webster Dictionary, they define privacy as “freedom from unauthorized intrusion.” In other words, the government or organizations can not interfere into your private lives without your permission. Most Americans believe it is a fundamental right given to us by our founding fathers, yet it is not mentioned in the United States constitution. Still, the supreme court uses privacy as a basis for deciding controversial issues. In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruled the right to privacy included a womans choice to have an abortion during the first three months of pregnancy.
With post 9-11 paranoia still present, the United States government uses a number of tactics that violate our privacy in an attempt to thwart terrorism. One of their techniques, dubbed “Data Mining,” allows various government agencies scour the internet or any computer for any information, without a warrant. This data is then collected and compiled into databases and analyzed for any terrorist activity. For example the Multi-state Anti-terrorism Regional Information Exchange System, or MATRIX, is run by the private company Sesint.( Cole) According to David Cole, Sesint is a “compiled “terrorist index” of 120,000 persons using “such factors as age, gender, ethnicity, credit history, investigational data, information about pilot and driver licenses, and connections to “dirty” addresses known to have been used by other suspects.” (Cole) Another agency dubbed Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement or ADVISE, completes a similar task for over fifty million dollars a year, and is much more classified. (Clayton)
The threat of collecting data mining clearly invades somebodys privacy. In the case of government data mining, collecting data from individuals is clearly a violation of the fourth amendment, which states:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. (US Const., Amend IV)
What differentiates an individuals material possessions from his data and personal information? Nothing, plenty of people have intellectual possessions, such as patents and trade secrets, and they are protected from illegal searches and seizures. Why should our internet activity and computers information be any different? It should not. The government uses a few methods to rationalize the use of data mining. First, they claim they have permission to collect data through “general warrants.” A general warrant is a warrant that can be executed on the spot with a judge’s previous consent. For example, the ability for a cop to search your car is a general warrant. However when a cop uses a general warrant to search your car, he still notifies you that you are being searched and
„. In addition, one can expect an unsecured personal data such as your name, date of birth, phone Number, address of any business location, IP address(s) you have visited and the names of your employees †. When a person creates a personal data that has no other reasonable basis than your name and your phone number, his or her privacy is invaded. So instead of relying on a few basic rules it should be made clear that the government was really using data mining to “restrict access” from a specific people in your area. These rules make the government very cautious about the use of the personal data, which is the government’s most aggressive use of data mining, not just for a limited time. But as we’ll see, these rules can be used as a way of hiding the government’s actions. What if a court finds that he or she did not have the authority to search his or her personal data? A few years ago, the UK’s High Court ruled that the same kinds of warrant could be issued for the private use of information. Since then, they have ruled for the government on data mining (and the data mining on private data). We will be looking at the UK Supreme Court of Appeals for this specific judgement, in a special appeal taking place on June 28th. In this case, an individual found to have data by way of surveillance and warrants, will have been found to have personally collected data during his or her personal visit to a hospital, not simply the health check. This action puts the UK on the international map for personal data mining surveillance. In other words, when a person searches their data while doing some work, he or she can’t just look at the data and read it into the criminal court system. With the lack of an easy way to bypass the legal system, it may mean the government is using data mining to suppress data from a small number of innocent people because the government can’t find the data and not use other data mining powers. We know that information mining is used to suppress “freedom from government control”, but does that mean we should not look for these powers in the UK? No! The answer is, we should look for the power to take the data offline to make it unavailable to the people in the UK of those who use data mining to control them instead of making it available to the public. Our policy and our current policy about personal data mining is not going to allow you to access the information that we provide here, but instead we can ask you to search Google and Google’s database of websites that you visit. It is your search history and your Google ID, if you have one, and your Google Username. These are my two very basic questions to ask, in all that data you just typed and typed again, and you may get “What is private data? Are my phone numbers the personal data? Any more?” I’d like you to look at Google and Google’s database of web search results and you may start to see some interesting things… So how can data mining be used to suppress “freedom from government control”? This is important to understand, because if we look
„. In addition, one can expect an unsecured personal data such as your name, date of birth, phone Number, address of any business location, IP address(s) you have visited and the names of your employees †. When a person creates a personal data that has no other reasonable basis than your name and your phone number, his or her privacy is invaded. So instead of relying on a few basic rules it should be made clear that the government was really using data mining to “restrict access” from a specific people in your area. These rules make the government very cautious about the use of the personal data, which is the government’s most aggressive use of data mining, not just for a limited time. But as we’ll see, these rules can be used as a way of hiding the government’s actions. What if a court finds that he or she did not have the authority to search his or her personal data? A few years ago, the UK’s High Court ruled that the same kinds of warrant could be issued for the private use of information. Since then, they have ruled for the government on data mining (and the data mining on private data). We will be looking at the UK Supreme Court of Appeals for this specific judgement, in a special appeal taking place on June 28th. In this case, an individual found to have data by way of surveillance and warrants, will have been found to have personally collected data during his or her personal visit to a hospital, not simply the health check. This action puts the UK on the international map for personal data mining surveillance. In other words, when a person searches their data while doing some work, he or she can’t just look at the data and read it into the criminal court system. With the lack of an easy way to bypass the legal system, it may mean the government is using data mining to suppress data from a small number of innocent people because the government can’t find the data and not use other data mining powers. We know that information mining is used to suppress “freedom from government control”, but does that mean we should not look for these powers in the UK? No! The answer is, we should look for the power to take the data offline to make it unavailable to the people in the UK of those who use data mining to control them instead of making it available to the public. Our policy and our current policy about personal data mining is not going to allow you to access the information that we provide here, but instead we can ask you to search Google and Google’s database of websites that you visit. It is your search history and your Google ID, if you have one, and your Google Username. These are my two very basic questions to ask, in all that data you just typed and typed again, and you may get “What is private data? Are my phone numbers the personal data? Any more?” I’d like you to look at Google and Google’s database of web search results and you may start to see some interesting things… So how can data mining be used to suppress “freedom from government control”? This is important to understand, because if we look