Violation of privacy by government

In class today Jon mentioned one study showing that people now trust their own judgment (online search engine) more than traditional media. I came across with two articles with different views on violation of privacy by the government. We can exercise our own judgment and see which one we agree with more.

In the first article, the author says that the government has a justified purpose for violating our privacy – to protect the public. According to the author, people may be too absolute in demanding privacy from the government, considering how much information we surrender voluntarily. It may be okay if the government is only using the information for that one purpose. However, once the government gains access to people’s personal information, they can certainly do more with it. For example, the second article indicates another purpose of government surveillance may be silencing whistleblowers from disclosing unauthorized spying activities by the government.

1. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/22/the-watergate-snowden-connection.html

2. http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/How-the-Government-Outsour-by-Robert-Scheer-CIA_Government-Crime_Intelligence_Intelligence-Database-150219-162.html