Privacy And The World Today

Finally, 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 Bob's 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 individual's 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 State's government and other organizations have no authority to violate our privacy by recording our information without our permission or overstepping boundaries into an individual's 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 American's believe it is a fundamental right given to us by our founding fathers, yet it is not mentioned in the United State's 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 woman's 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 somebody's 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 individual's 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