The Issue of Privacy vs Individual Safety - Essay Example

All the machines are used for surveillance, tracking, and identification purposes. They offer many benefits from efficiency to speed to strong analytical power. However, they continue to sacrifice more for the right to privacy. This paper discusses the issue of privacy versus individual safety.

The patriotic act is an act that is supposed to protect innocent American citizens from terrorist attacks. It gives law enforcement agencies all the power necessary to use any means and tools at their disposal to investigate drug trafficking, terrorism, and organized crime. This act gives the law the right to use surveillance in their investigation against terrorism This act also gives different government agencies the to share among themselves pertinent and relevant information (Bennett, 2007). Under this act, and the bank secrecy act, the FBI and special agents from IRS are allowed to access information from the records of financial institutions to investigate and monitor any activities that seem suspicious without alerting the financial institution (David, 2009).

Many argue that public surveillance help in the solving of crimes committed, and this they say is far much valuable than the intrusion by the government. Senior citizens tend to support the government's move in public surveillance (Locker, 2008).

Those who are against the concept of surveillance argue that government surveillance activities are not solely directed at suspected criminals and terrorists only. The surveillance is directed at all individuals. Lately, the government has been engaged in warrantless surveillance that is used to gather some highly sensitive information about innocent individuals. This surveillance does not take place in the open but takes place in private with no or little oversight by the courts the public or congress. Through this power, to collect massive details of private conversations and data, the government security agencies like the FBU and the NSA apply the use of computer programs to make predictions and likes about the behavior of people (Lyon & Zureik, 2006).

The government can compile dossiers about innocent citizens through the use of sensitive data. This data is stored in government databases, and the names of many Americans end up inaccurate and bloated in the watch lists, which determine if the individual can fly on commercial airlines or renew passports. Dragnet surveillance undermines individual rights to privacy and the freedom of speech, religion, and association (Penenberg, 2001).

The issue of privacy and surveillance has been a hot topic for debate in media houses. The government and a large percentage of the citizens are not on the same terms when it comes to this issue. The government argues that it must protect the citizens of the country against any threat, be it domestic or foreign. The most effective means of ensuring that this duty is performed is through the use of surveillance to predict behaviors and notice communication patterns that may lead to the averting of a terrorist attack or an incident that will infringe on individual security or the security of the nation at the whole (Wright & Hert, 2012).

Security has been increased at airports due to the threat that this industry faces from terrorists. This industry has employed the use of new and the latest technology that include the use of biometric scanners. These are machines that are used for recognition purposes. They can compare the fingerprint of an individual against a list of known terrorists and terrorist associates. Through the use of this technology, the airports have been able to avert several terrorist attacks and hijackings on their planes (Penenberg, 2001).

This technology has some disadvantages; sometimes the biometric scanner can relate to two different individuals, in such a situation of mistaken identity. An individual can be arrested and humiliated at the airport which will cost him his time. The individual is taken to a holding room at the airport where he is questioned about his identity. Such cases have increased their rates of occurrence and are becoming an issue at airports (Lyon & Zureik, 2006).

Conclusion
The issue of security is more crucial to everyone when compared to the issue of privacy. However, privacy is a constitutional right that should only be infringed upon with the consent of the individual, and this should be the protocol that can only be broken or bypassed if it is a matter of urgency or national security. Security and privacy issues are as weighty as our basic needs, therefore, the government should balance the two so that one does not affect the other. Read More