Information A Certain Person example essay topic

Do They Know too Much? Article IV of Bill of Rights states that, "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". One could the conclude that what one does on their personal computer, foods one buys at the grocery store with ones money, and other activities be their information to not be shared with others. Should the government be able to read your e-mail, know if you have bought a six-pack of beer, or that you buy a certain type of clothing?

How necessary is it that the government knows the most personal and intimate details of you life? They certainly believe that they are entitled. The access the government has to a person's information should be limited to only information that could be necessary to discover if someone is going to be dangerous. Say you were to get in trouble for a vehicle collision. In court it was presented that you buy alcohol so they will draw a conclusion and say that you are an alcoholic and you were driving drunk at the time of your incident, it may sound out there but if they know enough there is no telling what information they could use against you. There is a relatively new piece of hardware that the FBI has called "Carnivore" it is something that directly connects to the ISP or internet service provider and can be programmed to search for certain information or for the information a certain person is accessing.

The FBI how ever is only supposed to use Carnivore on someone if he or she has probable cause and if there is no other way for that person to be surveyed. Donald M. Kerr, Assistant Director of the Laboratory division of the FBI made an address to the United States Senate committee on the Judiciary in Washington, D.C. He said that, "Carnivore is a system which we are counting on to help us in critical ways in combating acts of terrorism, espionage, information warfare, hacking, and other serious and violent crimes occurring over the Internet, acts which threaten the security of our Nation and the safety of our people". If they are able to do such extensive searches to find information leading to terrorists, hackers, and otherwise than there should be no doubt that they are able to get into our information as well. Even though the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECP A) was passed which did not allow government to search the context, and "to" or "from" lines for information that might be suspicious, only the subject and re: lines, we are not certain this information is not being accessed. We have no way of knowing whether this information is for sure private. Some of those for against privacy will say that those who want more privacy have something to hide.

Maybe they do and maybe they do not, but either way there are things that no one needs to know about you because they are useless to anyone but yourself. It makes more sense if the only information the government could access would be the information that could lead to an individual being a danger to the individuals self or others. For instance, when someone wants to work in a children's daycare should not the government be able to check that person out to make sure they are not a pedophile or child molester. I am sure that would be more assuring to people to know that their children are safe. In the same sense, you would not want the person flying your plane or operating on your lungs to have a history of alcohol abuse. You want to be assured that you are safe, and most people rely on the government for that.

So pertaining to cases relating to those, then there is information that the government should be able to access. When it comes to personal conversations, your e-mail and billing information, those are a waste of time to even record. The e-mail you sent to your aunt might be recorded because of a keyword you used, your Instant Messenger Conversations could be monitored, and when you buy your jeans online you billing information can be recorded for who knows what. I am not saying that the government should no know anything about the citizens, but there should be a better definition of what is private and what is on a need to know basis. It really is not anyone's business what you do as long as what you do does not hurt and will not hurt anyone.