Ms Moffat's Class

To give up the privacy of an individual there must be a probable cause established, otherwise, there is the opportunity for law enforcement to abuse their powers. This was proven in "Weeks v. the United States” when law when law enforcement searched his house without his consent. Therefore, all the evidence brought was inadmissible in court. This grants Americans the right to self.

Giving up your date of birth to access your bank account is not actually giving up privacy. This is known as a verification question and is set by you. It is your choice what your verification would be not the bank's choice. Therefore, you aren't actually giving up privacy you are divulging information you think will verify that it is you.

The giving up of privacy for security often leads to the creation of a security theatre where individuals might feel safe but aren’t actually safe. The best example of this is the TSA, where often times illegal items are not stopped from passing through. So the security checks at airports would not actually stop terrorists. Also, 57% of American Citizens do not want to give up privacy and think it is unacceptable for the government to monitor them according to a study done in 2013 by the Pew research centre.

https://privacysos.org/security_theater/

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/21/the-state-of-privacy-in-america/

Most websites contain cookies which track your internet surfing and analyze this data creating a virtual profile to sell to advertisers. This is known as cookie profiling or data mining. This creates a virtual profile of you through your browsing history and used to make ads more directed towards you. The selling of these profiles to advertisers leads to your data being more valuable than you. They make money by monetizing you. Removal of your privacy would lead to a new currency, "your data".

http://www.allaboutcookies.org/cookies/cookie-profiling.htm

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/apple-boss-tim-cook-slams-google-and-facebook-for-selling-their-users-data-10295158.html

Privacy is our most important amendment as it allows us protection from the outside world and if privacy is not supported in this country then what sets us apart from various regimes and dictatorships. You have talked about PRISM which was the call-tracking program. It violated the foreign intelligence surveillance act of 1978. Which leads us to the question, what right does the government have to remove the privacy of foreign citizens? Also as stated before privacy removal programs have often led to convictions which would have been possible without the surveillance. After all, what is worth protecting if we remove a quality that seperates us from most nations

In a world now where everything is digitized. The removal of privacy might lead to the digitization of your life leading to your data being used to influence your decisions. There already has been an example of this when Facebook failed to prevent the use of data from millions of its users to be captured and improperly used to influence the presidential election. The data of up to 87 million users were affected according to the independent. This shows that with the removal of privacy our own data can be used by governments or others to influence our decisions on several key decisions such as voting or referendums.

https://www.wired.com/story/wired-facebook-cambridge-analytica-coverage/

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/facebook-cambridge-analytica-data-scandal-a8289091.html

The patriot act was established by the US after 9/11 attacks. This allowed the NSA to send NSLs (National Security letters) to request records for certain people. The FBI has issued 192,499 NSLs, with only one of them leading to a terror-related conviction which would have occurred without NSLs. Several people who received NSL (National Security Letter which allows them to access an individual's records) have been prohibited from telling others. This is known as a “gag order” and is deemed unconstitutional as it violates the 1st amendment. This shows that the giving up of privacy only led to one terror-related conviction. This shows that terror-attacks will not be stopped by giving up privacy.

https://oig.justice.gov/special/s0803b/final.pdf

https://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security/privacy-and-surveillance/surveillance-under-patriot-act

https://www.wired.com/2017/03/mass-spying-isnt-just-intrusive-ineffective/

We would like to start this debate by defining the key terms:

National Security: “the safety of a nation against threats such as terrorism, war, or espionage.”

Privacy: “freedom from unauthorized intrusion or disturbance”

The purpose of the bill of rights is to prevent an invasive government. Also, the national safety is to protect the constitution and our laws. If we aren’t using the constitution then what may be the point of protecting it? The founding fathers must have considered privacy as an important right to include it in the amendment. Privacy is one of the most important rights and is essential for a free nation.