Public Security and Personal Privacy

Public Security and Personal Privacy Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Public Security and Personal Privacy Introduction The united states of America are facing a real and a grave security threat. International terrorism and extremism have thrived and flourished in many parts of the globe. These insecurities have been threatening the United States warfighters, the homeland and their allies. The regional conflicts have also led to severe security threats in the United States. The newest threats and dangers that the country is facing is the one associated with the cyberspace. The cybersecurity threat has increasingly continued to face the US national government each year. The threat has posed a dangerous security impact on the United States economy and also its citizens. The hackers, cybercriminals, and foreign adversaries have become more complex and sophisticated in the use of the internet to cause harm to the United States. Due to these potential dangers of insecurity, the relevant part of the government is that it monitors the personal privacy of many people for the sake of national security. Personal privacy is critical and should be protected at all costs for all citizens. While personal privacy is critical and needs to be protected, the government is obligated to put in place various security improvements that not only improve the security situation of the citizens, but also ensure that their privacy is not violated. Background Before the 9/11, the United States national government instituted policies which were aimed at protecting personal privacy. This was mainly catalysed by the emergence of the new technology which made it essential for regulations against the privacy breach. In the year 1960, the government enacted laws that protected the telephone calls even when they happened in a public pay phone. This law mostly limited the ability of the police officers to listen to private phone calls. After the 9/11 incidence, the relevant authorities of the government have instituted several measures to counter the insecurity issue in the United States. Some of these policies include the mass surveillance of citizen’s personal information. As a result, this issue has raised many questions among the stakeholders. The Government Should Not Sacrifice the Privacy of Citizens to Achieve the Purpose of Security Security is a significant concern today due to the rising levels of terrorism and cyber-attacks. It is for this reason that the American government is devoted to protecting its citizens by the use of all means possible. National security is one of the most import things that the government can provide to its citizens. The primary role of the government is to provide the required security to its citizens (Elmaghraby & Losavio, 2014). Therefore, the relevant government department has decided to come up with the new measures to protect its citizen from the threats facing them. Some of the tools and policies that are used in maintaining security include sacrificing personal privacy to curb insecurity. The efforts by the government to protect the Americans deserve to be praised, but the only problem with their actions is that they have not considered personal security as a priority. The argument here is that personal privacy is also part of the individual security. It is, therefore, questionable whether the government can provide public security without sacrificing personal privacy (Mitchener-Nissen, 2013). It is worth understanding that personal privacy and public security are not a zero-sum game. Providing security to the public does not imply that personal privacy has to be sacrificed. There are many methods that the government can employ to achieve its objectives of giving enough security to its citizens. Some of these methods would enable the government to have control over security issues while still maintaining the personal data and information privacy. People would choose to have security rather than privacy if asked to choose between the two. Everyone requires security for survival, but privacy is a human social need. In a recent poll to determine what people would consider important between security and privacy, it is not by surprise that 51% of the people chose security over privacy (Li, Wang & Sun, 2017). It appears that security is more crucial even for those who don’t subscribe to Maslow's hierarchy of need. Security is essential for people to experience happiness in their daily endeavours. Despite being so crucial to human survival, there need to be a balance between privacy and security which helps to improve the level of individual privacy. Privacy is a unique aspect that is enjoyed by human beings. Security is also one of the most crucial aspects for the human beings existence and survival. In the light of the competing importance between the two, the security departments need to establish at what circumstances when security cannot be compromised for privacy and the instances when the privacy does not need to be given up for security. This step will help improve the national security as well as protect the personal privacy. From the preceding privacy versus the security trade-off relationship, it makes sense to forego privacy to some extent to safeguard security. In specific situations like in airports, prioritizing security over privacy can be seen a feasible move since a simple body scanning exercise is capable of saving a multitude of people from a great danger of terrorist attack (Valkenburg, 2014). This is one of the privacy versus security trade-off model that can be used to determine the extent to which privacy can be foregone to provide security. It is well understood that sacrificing a small piece of privacy might be inevitable where additional security is indispensable. However, the protection of both the privacy and provision of security requires the contribution of all the stakeholders. People should be willing to give a certain degree of their privacy while the government should be willing to protect personal privacy by all means. Further exposing the Americans data and information to provide security is a wrong move. The criminals are also using sophisticated technologies to execute their plans. That implies that the exposed information about the citizens can be used by the terrorists to execute even fatal attacks (Sandler, 2014). It is worth noting that everyone can access the information accessed by the government through the use of the right spying soft wares. This move will make the nation to be even more vulnerable to security threats. It exposes people to the threat of ...