Privacy Case

Privacy

Privacy in the 21st Century is a thing of the past. Technological advances have made the "Big Brother" initiative more common in today's society. Individual privacy has been intruded by advances with global positioning systems; the Internet, "hackers," and media enriched websites like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace have all influenced an individual's lack of privacy. However, applying the same standards to national security would be ridiculous. The tragic events that transpired on September 11th, 2001, will forever change the way people think about security and the way American's live their lives in terms of privacy. Evaluate the complexity of discretion and how it relates to an individual's privacy versus national security; consider the possibility if they lost their privacy completely and how that could potentially be detrimental to their way of life.

Individuals that serve in the military uphold the highest standard on individual privacy and in regards to national security. Protecting individual privacy, especially in a vulnerable society, is imperative. Supporting the efforts of national security is essential, but for many different reasons. In a press release from James R. Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, regarding the pursuit and successful execution of Osama Bin Laden; an individual that has been a major threat to national security, he stated, The careful, diligent work of the CIA, NGA, and NSA was simply incredible. It is with great pride and admiration that I offer thanks to all of the dedicated men and women of our community who worked so tirelessly in this achievement. Clapper continues with a reminder to his country, I want to thank the President for his cool, decisive leadership. The Intelligence Community will never waver in our continued commitment to protect our citizens, our friends, and our allies. (Clapper, 2011) The collaboration and meticulous efforts from these exceptional departments are a testament to the effective protection to the nation's national security efforts. In retrospect, the preservation of America's national security play a significant role in regards to protecting the military's strategies and secrets. Ensuring a high level of security within the military is dependent on the individuals that have taken the oath to protect the United States by any means necessary and to all of those that pose a threat, both foreign and domestic. Unfortunately, the same is not true for an individual's privacy and their personal identity.

Everyone's personal information is readily obtainable with the technological advances that have been created to enrich people's lives. These same advances have presented doubt and uncertainties to the mass majority of individuals that utilize the internet; however, they should pay closer attention to the ramifications that will occur when providing personal information on public sites. In this regards, it's literally impossible to protect an individual's privacy. Technology used to be for geeks and scientists, but since the birth of the Internet, Information Technology (IT) has provided an accumulation of advance software solutions and applications that have had an adverse affect to global communications as well as the media's capability to reach the world at any given opportunity. People should be concerned with the information they provide on public websites and how these advanced technologies can infiltrate their personal identity. Malicious acts by hackers occur every day as they attempt to steal people's identity to obtain their personal information and to gain access to private accounts, in an attempt to initiate fraudulent acts. This has become an epidemic. Identity theft is the "crime of the 21st century." According to the Federal Trade Commission, more than 8 million Americans were victims of identity theft in the most recent year for which statistics are available, and total losses are in excess of $15 Billion. (Sadler, 2011)

The Internet has played a significant role in the way people communicate. Unfortunately, it has also contributed to the decline of individual's privacy by providing avenues of invasion to vulnerable websites and databases that contain millions and millions of individual's personal information. Initial efforts were made to protect this invaluable information by several companies like Norton, McAfee, and Symantec. In 1990, Symantec acquired Norton to systematically improve the security programs that protect information. As stated on Symantec's website, The Internet can also risk an individual's personal safety if they don't know how to protect themselves while benefitting from the many online resources. Every three seconds, an identity is stolen online - that's nearly 10,512,000 identities each year. (Symantec.com, 2011) The article continues with a variety of data, initiatives, and partnerships to increase online security, all in order to protect individual's identity and personal information. Symantec's technical professionals have worked diligently towards implementing several policies to promote security over the internet, called Cybersecurity. Cybersecurity requires not only individual consumer and business action, but also international coordinated legislation and policies. For this reason, Symantec advocates for effective laws and regulations and coordinates with governments and law enforcement agencies worldwide to ensure that they have the training and resources needed to aggressively pursue cybercriminals. Governments are the third most targeted sector for cyber attacks and are wholly responsible for 20 percent of all data breaches. (Symantec.com, 2011)

These methods have proven to be ineffective to sophisticated viruses, worms, and of course, the originators of this epidemic: hackers. Several countries have recently taken initiatives to enhance their protection via the internet utilizing the same policy as described by Symantec. In an article recently written and posted on Reuters.com, it states, South Korea said on Tuesday it was drawing up a cyber security master plan after a wave of hacking attacks against global agencies and companies but some other Asian governments appeared to have no blueprint for tackling the threat. (Magnowski, 2011) In the same article, Gatot Dewa Broto, of the communications and information ministry for Indonesia, was quoted, 'Every day, not every month, but every day, we get 1.2 million hacker attacks in Indonesia, both from within the country and outside...if we don't improve [our capabilities] we could face a possible public and commercial institutional collapse.' This is indicative to the seriousness of this epidemic.

The Unites States of America and the properties that are