Privacy and technology - Essay Example

According to If Looks could kill by The Economist and Trading Liberty for Illusions by Wendy Kaminer, the world today tends to prefer the inconsequential over the important aspects in their lives. For instance, people now judge based on race after the 9/11 attacks, airport security has become increasingly intrusive, and technological advances have eroded whatever little privacy people had left. Both Wendy Kaminer in Trading Liberty for Illusions and The Economist in If Looks Could Kill refer to terrorism as one of the main reasons why the privacy of ordinary American citizens is being invaded.

The main reason for Kaminer’s article is to opine that the government hides behind the threat of terrorism to excuse their infringement on their citizen’s rights. She uses the rhetorical technique of pathos to appeal to the readers’ emotions. She starts her article by saying, “Only a fool with no sense of history would have been sanguine about the prospects for civil liberties after the September 11 attack” (Kaminer, 2004). This ensures the reader knows she is against the invasion of privacy on the pretext of terror threats.

She contends that the Bush Administration held over a thousand non-native Americans after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, although most of them were not connected to the events of the day (Kaminer, 2004). Kaminer concludes that the fear of the government and subsequent attacks make citizens give their liberty up because they have been fed on security illusions. On the other hand, The Economist’s main reason for writing their article is to opine that the threat of terrorism and crime has pushed technology to higher heights.

They use the rhetorical device of logos to contend that technology talking about the ability of new technology to use micro-expressions rather than the old profiling technique. This technology will remove the risk of racial profiling by the police because all it detects are expressions made by an individual, rather than the color of their skin (The Economist, 2008). In addition, The Economist also contends that the technology will be important in cases where packages are left by suspicious individuals and will alert security officials on the potential danger.

The Economist talks about other technologies aimed at anti-terrorism that measures breathing and heart rate, perspiration rates, temperature of one’s skin, and the flow of blood, doing all this while the potential suspect is some meters away from them. They say that this machine was tested, and it identified 80% of individuals attempting to sneak weapons into a room (The Economist, 2008). It is clear that The Economist and Wendy Kaminer have very different ideas on the use of technology to combat terrorism.

While Kaminer contends that the current technology fails and infringes on the privacy of ordinary citizens, The Economist is of the idea that new technologies in the pipeline will be more reliable and will not be culpable to racial profiling. The two articles discuss the issue of technology and privacy but organize their arguments in different ways. Wendy Kaminer in Trading Liberty for Illusion begins her article by contending that terrorist attacks and crime have always led Americans to allow the government to trample civil liberties when there is an attack because they feel under siege or frightened (Kaminer, 2004).

She gives a brief history of US Presidents who