The Bad
- Surveillance is expensive: As, of 2015 In the U.S. $72 Billion is spent every year on surveillance.
- Bruce Schneier, a prominent privacy advocate, suggests that the biggest cost to people living in America is our liberty. He contends that freedom has to include some right to privacy, “if every move you make is being chronicled, liberty is curtailed.”
- Everything you store can be used against you in the court of law. “Ubiquitous surveillance means that anyone could be convicted of law breaking, once the police set their minds to it.”
- Bruce Schneier suggests that surveillance data has been used to justify a number of penalties, such as subjecting people to more intensive airport security to deporting them. He highlights the following example: “In 2012, before his Los Angeles vacation, 26-year-old Irish man Leigh Van Bryan tweeted, “Free this week, for quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America.” The Us Government had been surveilling the entire Twitter feed. Agents picked up Bryan’s message, correlated it with airplane passenger lists, and were waiting for him at the border when he arrived from Ireland. His comment wasn’t serious, but he was questioned for 5 hours and then sent back home.”
- Why it matters? You should be free to talk with friends and family, send a text or read a book or article without having to worry if it looks incriminating.
- Surveillance has the potential to have alarming effects on society. “US supreme court Justice Sonia Sotomayor recognized this in her concurring opinion on a 2012 case about the FBI’s installing a GPS tracker in someone’s car.”
- It is causing writers to self-censor. They avoid writing about and researching certain subjects.
