How the Government Ruined Invading People's Privacy

Recently there was a lot of outrage of the NSA. The NSA possibly abused its power and jeopardized the privacy of Americans by collecting information on American civilians through accessing phone calls, emails, and other cyber information. The information was being collected secretly for the United States in order to protect American well-being. When the story broke of Edward Snowden bringing laptops with access to this secret information to China, he viewed as both a traitor to America by some and as others a liberator for privacy reform in the modern world. This story sparked the debate of how far a country should (be able to) go to ensure its own safety and well-being. Can the privacy of that country’s citizens be jeopardized for its national security? This incident, while justifiable for some reasons, made me wonder if there was any privacy in the world, online or otherwise.

Apparently the NSA is tracking everything most everybody is doing. Beyond this though, search engines, social networks, and other online services are harvesting information on users in order to someway return a larger profit. Google, Facebook, Microsoft and other consumer services companies collect personal information on their users from information that is posted and stored on their servers, and by doing so, companies can keep product prices low while at the same time returning large profits. This is the same general business strategy of Google and it is the main reason why their Android and Chrome software is free for OEMs to license.

There was a large uproar immediately following the break of the NSA scandal, however, there are some other more important issues that should have been considered. In the modern world today, there is an unspoken agreement between companies and users that allows the user’s personal information to be sold and/or auctioned to advertisers. When signing up for new email or social networking accounts, the boxes to share personal information with the website is also preselected, making the user have to deselect this box to keep personal information private. The status quo for individual privacy has changed with the growth and development of social networks and online services. The government’s ability to combat threats to national security has also changed as new communication mediums have come and gone.

Most of the information the government received was obtained from large corporations that already mine information to sell advertisements. It seems like these sorts of acts were expected and understood when it comes to corporations in a vicious capitalist economy, but as soon as the government starts instigating similar practices, it is completely unethical and unjust. These corporations are invading the privacy of their users to protect and increase their own profits, success, and well-being. The NSA’s “Prism” program was intended to protect American national security and well-being. What I just can’t wrap my head around is how people can bash the NSA for invading the privacy of Americans and return to their Google accounts for email, calendars, and socializing, completely ignoring the fact that companies like this have been doing it to their user’s for much longer.

Matthew Johnson