I'm wondering why so few people seem to care about our core values in this country (the United States) when it comes to technological development?
Technology and Our Core Values
- Thread starter CuttingEdge100
- Start date
Uh? 
Privacy for one. Nobody seems to care about it.
Rii
Rear Admiral
I don't see what that has to do with technoligcal development, rather it's just a function of how people use the technologies that are available.
In the long-run, I do think our contemporary notions of individual liberty are going to be increasingly threatened by technological developments. Consider a hypothetical future wherein any individual so inclined could construct a thermonuclear weapon from household goods in short order. You wouldn't be able to go a week without one disturbed individual condemning millions to death.
Rii,
I'd have to agree that privacy will be progressively eroded as time goes on and as technological advancements proceed
Jadzia,
There is supposed to be a requirement of probable cause, which means they have a reason to suspect you're doing something wrong, and that warrant is supposed to be approved by a judge.
CuttingEdge100
I'd have to agree that privacy will be progressively eroded as time goes on and as technological advancements proceed
Jadzia,
There is supposed to be a requirement of probable cause, which means they have a reason to suspect you're doing something wrong, and that warrant is supposed to be approved by a judge.
CuttingEdge100
J
Jetfire
Guest
Privacy is important, then one could argue if you have nothing to hide, don't worry...I worry about my dignity has a human being...when someone invades your privacy, they take away part of that dignity. It doesn't matter if it is the government spying on your every move or your neighbor secretly videotaping you in your home...you lose privacy, you lose some of that dignity.
[edit] It may not be written anywhere...but dignity is the right of all humans.
[edit] It may not be written anywhere...but dignity is the right of all humans.
Many Americans have demonstrated they don't care at all about privacy. Just look at the things people put on their Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc. pages. Most people don't need the government or a major corporation to spy on them--they willingly lay their lives bare on the open Web!
That doesn't mean you don't have a right to privacy, though. What you do in your own home is most certainly your own business, and the police need probable cause--a warrant, even--in order to come into your house and see what you're up to.
Technology has just enabled people to violate their own privacy more efficiently. If you still want to protect yourself, you can--but you have to make the effort. Don't expect anyone else to look out for your privacy rights.
That doesn't mean you don't have a right to privacy, though. What you do in your own home is most certainly your own business, and the police need probable cause--a warrant, even--in order to come into your house and see what you're up to.
Technology has just enabled people to violate their own privacy more efficiently. If you still want to protect yourself, you can--but you have to make the effort. Don't expect anyone else to look out for your privacy rights.
That pretty much covers it... technology has enabled those with either voyeuristic or exhibitionistic tendencies to take those tendencies to the extremes.
The notion if you don't have anything to hide, their is no need to worry is as much a fallacy as it is outdated.
Robert Maxweel wrote:
What you do in your own home is most certainly your own business, and the police need probable cause--a warrant, even--in order to come into your house and see what you're up to.
Unfortunely this is not the case, under the Patriot Act repersentives from the gov't can enter your home without suspecion or warrent for a "Sneak & Peek", check out your belonging, your computer; etc; and until recently did not even need to tell you. As it stands now they can inform you months down the road. And that my friends is as far as their accountablity goes. If any one is intrested in seeing the extent of gov't powers, some would characterize "abuse".
I recommend the Electronic Frontier Foundation, they have documented gov't intrusion in privacy for many years, I encourage anyone who cares in the slightest to read some of what is there and after ask yourself how do you feel about this...
http://www.eff.org/related/384/blog
http://www.eff.org/related/383/blog
http://www.eff.org/related/3494/blog
The Shatinator
Robert Maxweel wrote:
What you do in your own home is most certainly your own business, and the police need probable cause--a warrant, even--in order to come into your house and see what you're up to.
Unfortunely this is not the case, under the Patriot Act repersentives from the gov't can enter your home without suspecion or warrent for a "Sneak & Peek", check out your belonging, your computer; etc; and until recently did not even need to tell you. As it stands now they can inform you months down the road. And that my friends is as far as their accountablity goes. If any one is intrested in seeing the extent of gov't powers, some would characterize "abuse".
I recommend the Electronic Frontier Foundation, they have documented gov't intrusion in privacy for many years, I encourage anyone who cares in the slightest to read some of what is there and after ask yourself how do you feel about this...
http://www.eff.org/related/384/blog
http://www.eff.org/related/383/blog
http://www.eff.org/related/3494/blog
The Shatinator
Let me answer your question with one of my own.
What the hell are "our core values" in America and what makes you think they'd have anything whatsoever to do with technology?
I mean, I only ask this because a solid two-thirds of the internet's early functionality revolved around either the distribution of porn or online flirting/dating/cybersex, so unless you think "horineness" is a core American value, you might as well be asking why chicken farmers don't seem to care about William Shatner's career.
Who said anything about the government? 99% of the people spying on you right now are advertisers. Ironically, advertisement also accounts for a huge chunk of internet revenues on top of it.
To reiterate my earlier point: "core values" have nothing whatsoever to do with technological development; MONEY, however, has everything to do with it. Privacy will only become secure when personal information is no longer valuable to advertisers (as for the FBI... if they really want to find out who you are and what you're doing, usually they'll just pay/coerce/threaten someone into informing on you).
Jetfire,
I'd have to agree with what you said about spying violating one's dignity. The statement though that if you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide, though is fallacious.
The government shouldn't be spying on me unless they have a probable cause.
Spying is also dangerous in the fact that knowledge is power. It's not good for corporations or the government to have too much power over ordinary citizens for obvious reasons.
Robert Maxwell,
While most people don't care about privacy, I do. And the Constitution does imply that the government is not supposed to violate my privacy without good cause as you stated.
I would agree with your assessment though that technology has made spying a great deal more efficient. I of course do take measures to protect my privacy, but a person hell bent on finding out everything there is to know about me could do so if they wanted to whether I liked it or not.
Shatinator,
I'm actually quite familiar with the EFF
T'Girl,
Agreed, search and seizure without probable cause is unreasonable
Newtype Alpha,
Well the Constitution is one of the key components of America's core values, and among those is the 4th Amendment.
As for the last post which discusses the fact that advertisers do the bulk of the spying on Americans, you have to realize that much of that data ultimately ends up in the hands of the government.
While I believe that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with making money, I do believe that there is a problem when it comes at a disregard for Constitutional values, and basic morality.
CuttingEdge100
I'd have to agree with what you said about spying violating one's dignity. The statement though that if you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide, though is fallacious.
The government shouldn't be spying on me unless they have a probable cause.
Spying is also dangerous in the fact that knowledge is power. It's not good for corporations or the government to have too much power over ordinary citizens for obvious reasons.
Robert Maxwell,
While most people don't care about privacy, I do. And the Constitution does imply that the government is not supposed to violate my privacy without good cause as you stated.
I would agree with your assessment though that technology has made spying a great deal more efficient. I of course do take measures to protect my privacy, but a person hell bent on finding out everything there is to know about me could do so if they wanted to whether I liked it or not.
Shatinator,
I'm actually quite familiar with the EFF
T'Girl,
Agreed, search and seizure without probable cause is unreasonable
Newtype Alpha,
Well the Constitution is one of the key components of America's core values, and among those is the 4th Amendment.
As for the last post which discusses the fact that advertisers do the bulk of the spying on Americans, you have to realize that much of that data ultimately ends up in the hands of the government.
While I believe that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with making money, I do believe that there is a problem when it comes at a disregard for Constitutional values, and basic morality.
CuttingEdge100
Which applies to illegal search and seizures, not some douchebag reading your browser cache to try and figure out how to more effectively spam you.
I am not sure why I should be concerned about the U.S. government acquiring marketing data on 300 million people. Even if they could find an efficient way to extract the information specifically pertaining to me, AND even if they could find an efficient way yo analyze that data so far removed from the context in which it was collected, they would still have to come up with a reason to be looking for it in the first place.
If I'm going to get investigated by the FBI anyway, I'd much rather have them waste time sifting through thousands of bits of marketing info than actually investigating me.
The Constitution is a legal document, it doesn't have "values" as such, and even if it did, privacy isn't one of them. You have a reasonable expectation that your PROPERTY should be respected at all times (which is one of your civil rights, the right to property) but information about what you do and how you do it isn't your property and you don't really have a right to protect it. The only right you DO have is to exclude others access to your property with the sole purpose of violating your privacy without warrant; therefore, the government can spy on you all they want by tracking your internet activity, monitoring your market preferences, even by reading the content of your message board posts (hint hint) but it doesn't become "search and seizure" unless they HACK your computer and copy the contents of your hard drive hoping to take an inventory of your porn folder.
Jadzia in post number six, Jetfire in post number eight and Shatinator in post number eleven.
J
Jetfire
Guest
The ones who say what I bolded are fools, even if one was doing nothing wrong it doesn't mean they don't have something they want out there for people to have general knowledge of.
Someone mentioned advertisers violating privacy to sell people stuff...this is just as bad.
I agree with the last statement totally.
Around here (in other threads), I have said that those who don't draw attention to themselves will probably be okay. It's not that if you aren't doing anything wrong you have nothing to hide, but rather that the sheer amount of data out there precludes authorities noticing anything but the most egregious, attention-getting perpetrators.
If you go and download some kiddie porn from an obscure site, odds are no one is ever going to notice or find out. If, however, you cruise IRC from room to room, asking for pictures of naked kids, red flags are gonna go up for somebody and odds are you will attract attention.
So, what I would say is that, if you do have something to hide, don't be obvious about it. While everything you do online is logged, nobody is going to take a closer look at it unless you do something to warrant the attention. That's a big part of maintaining your privacy online--lay low, don't make a spectacle of yourself, and try not to make any credible enemies. And if you do get involved in anything that might get you into trouble, don't link it to any of your more common online identities, such as your Facebook or Twitter pages.
You can have privacy online if you are willing to work at it. The things people can find out about me are only the things I'm okay with people knowing, if they're so determined to go snooping around.
I also have a pretty common name, so googling me is no easy task.
If you go and download some kiddie porn from an obscure site, odds are no one is ever going to notice or find out. If, however, you cruise IRC from room to room, asking for pictures of naked kids, red flags are gonna go up for somebody and odds are you will attract attention.
So, what I would say is that, if you do have something to hide, don't be obvious about it. While everything you do online is logged, nobody is going to take a closer look at it unless you do something to warrant the attention. That's a big part of maintaining your privacy online--lay low, don't make a spectacle of yourself, and try not to make any credible enemies. And if you do get involved in anything that might get you into trouble, don't link it to any of your more common online identities, such as your Facebook or Twitter pages.
You can have privacy online if you are willing to work at it. The things people can find out about me are only the things I'm okay with people knowing, if they're so determined to go snooping around.
I also have a pretty common name, so googling me is no easy task.
Newtype Alpha,
The government wants to collect this information for a simple reason. The more accurate information they have, the more accurate a profile they can construct of you. If I have a profile that's 100% accurate, I can predict everything you will do.
And the government is developing all sorts of algorithms to sift through the data you described and organize it into useful data. If you've read about IARPA/ARDA's ACQUAINT program you would know that.
Knowledge is power; absolute knowledge is absolute power.
Robert Maxwell,
I don't have a facebook page, and the myspace page I have barely has any information on it.
The government wants to collect this information for a simple reason. The more accurate information they have, the more accurate a profile they can construct of you. If I have a profile that's 100% accurate, I can predict everything you will do.
And the government is developing all sorts of algorithms to sift through the data you described and organize it into useful data. If you've read about IARPA/ARDA's ACQUAINT program you would know that.
Knowledge is power; absolute knowledge is absolute power.
Robert Maxwell,
I don't have a facebook page, and the myspace page I have barely has any information on it.
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