Some news reports have suggested that the Bush administration used the USA Patriot Act to look at the e-mails of American citizens without a warrant. What’s your position if this was indeed the case? Should citizens be willing to give up their privacy? Does it bother you to know that your online communications are very potentially semi-private instead of private?
In my opinion the Patriot Act was used irresponsibility and only used in a way to completely diminish the American publics privacy. America is seen as a country where people are free and able to do as they wish as long as they don’t over step the boundary of the law. Unfortunately, this is not the case anymore. The Patriot Act pretty much gives free reign for the Government to invade the privacy of the people they are sworn to protect. They are taking away American freedoms set aside by our forefathers. I don’t believe that we as Americans should give up our privacy for an overzealous expedition by the president of the United States. In the age that we are in now when technology is in everything we do it would be ridiculous for electronic or “online” communication not to be protected. If this law is to continue to be enacted in the manner in which it has been in the past then as an American society we might as well kiss our freedoms goodbye.
There are, in fact, ways to communicate via email privately, but these tools are not easy to use. Only the geekset will try using these.
ReplyDeleteI often wonder if there has been pressure to suppress this technology by govts. if an e-mail provider or mail app developer wanted to simplify the process.