Loss of Privacy

Hussam Alowaybil

IEPA 060 – Adler

Rough Draft #2

March 2nd, 2015

Loss of Privacy

      According to Edward Snowden the former NSA agent, who leaked classified documents in 2013, there are at least 80% of all audio calls, not just metadata, are recorded and stored in the U.S. The documents showed that there is a project named “Five Eyes” exploits an alliance between U.S. (C.I.A.) and Australian (S.I.O.), Canadian (S.I.S.), New Zealand (S.I.S.), and U.K. (MI6) intelligent agencies for mass surveillance cooperation. Most people feel about mass surveillance is that they trade their privacy in order to bring security, yet with the recent events of Edward Snowden leaked documents, people are further worried about the negative effects of the surveillance and how the U.S. economy becomes affected. It also revealed an interested example of how the surveillance works when the telecom company Vodafone, which is British based, granted a direct access to six anonymous nations on their own communications database.                      U.S. government should be more integrated and transparent regarding the mass surveillance controversial issue as the NSA leaked documents showed that there are negative effects on society in terms of individual freedom by violating privacy laws and the U.S. businesses profit margins dropped due to such activity.

      With this intention, there are concerns of citizens of their governments to be overpowered by owning such gigantic information that intrudes their privacy and infers personal life.  Besides, Professor Neil. M. Richards, who teaches law at Washington University Law (WUL) and internationally-recognized as a privacy expert, says “how surveillance menaces our intellectual privacy and threatens the development of individual beliefs in ways that are inconsistent with the basic commitments of democratic societies” (Richards, 2013, Para. 7).  That is to say, privacy is a perception that reflects our image to society and when the federal government decided to collect such details about its citizens’ personal lives could be the last straw in democracy.  Speaking about this, U.S. government argues that they only collect cell phones metadata like length, location, and the timing of calls, however, Marry Madden, who is a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center and nationally recognized expert on online privacy management, disapproves of what she had as a feedback from the public. Based on her research within her team regarding public privacy, resultss were shocking when “91% of adults in the survey “agree” or “strongly agree” that consumers have lost control over how personal information is collected and used by companies” (Madden, 2014, Para. 4).  Considering this, the findings indicate how severe Snowden’s revelations on Americans, which questions the authority and legalization of such activity. For one thing, U.S. citizens nowadays demanding some answers from Obama’s administration to get over their fears about their privacy.