Privacy: the state of being free from intrusion or disturbance in one's private life or affairs; that is the definition of privacy as seen in the Webster English dictionary. Privacy is one of our most protected and sought after principles that is used as the basis of many legal arguments each year and it is used as a political standpoint for most recent elections. But ask yourself this, when we as Americans pride ourselves as having the right to privacy, we claim how lucky we are to be one of the few countries who possess this wonderful virtue, how is it that we are giving that right away? How is it that we simply tell everybody and their brother our phone numbers, our email addresses, our house address, and where we go to school or work? There are many outlets that we use to ensure that not one single person does not know where they should find us at any given moment. For example, on Facebook people can put their hometowns, their current towns, their old schools, their recent schools, where they work, their birthdays, who they are in a relationship, and that is only in the small information bar located on the top of the profile! Once we include what pictures we have posted or what we write on our wall, you might as well forget about ever keeping a secret. This access to such private information is not only a very irresponsible thing to do, but it is also an epidemic that has swept not only the nation, but the entire world. The founding fathers of this country fought so forcefully for the right to privacy for a reason, privacy keeps people safe and it keeps people connected.
Privacy is vital because if people do not keep certain information to themselves and instead it becomes a free for all, there are many consequences. As previously stated, privacy keeps people safe and safety is the utmost importance when it refers to peoples finances, especially in today’s economy. For one, identity theft has skyrocketed with every one in ten people already falling as a victim and these numbers just continue to grow. Identity theft costs people billions of dollars every year while also ruining credit scores and thus essentially ruining their lives. Privacy also keeps people safe physically because if you have all of your information out in the internet floating around somewhere, any person can use that information in any way that they choose. For example, in India recently a man was convicted to the death sentence because after a young girl turned his sexual advances down, he was obsessed about getting her. He was able to use her social networking site to get her house location and then from there he used Google Earth to track her movements. After using both physical stalking and cyber stalking, he was able to make a schedule for her to know the right moment to attack. She was brutally murdered and by no means is this an isolated case. Multiple murders and even more robberies have been connected to using either social networking sites or Google Earth to plan an attack. By using either one of these sites, we are taking our privacy away from ourselves and we will undoubtedly suffer the consequences.
Outside of Facbook sites or Google maps, the government often has public records available on the internet or some people have created websites devoted solely to buying and selling peoples information. Information such as tax forms, current addresses, and other financial numbers are up for sale if the buyer wants to pay a certain price or if they are savvy enough to gain access into this web space. How is this even possible? Our entire lives are completely exposed and transparent to those with deep pockets or swift fingers and the average person is helpless to stop many of these actions. It is absolutely imperative that these actions cease or this abuse of information and of privacy will not only continue, but it will become even more prevalent as people freely hand out more and more information to the internet.
The right to privacy is supposed to keep people safe by ensuring that those people who are not supposed to be involved in personal matter stay out. Not only are people disturbing and intruding other peoples’ lives, most people are encouraging this behavior by either being naïve to this entire situation or by simply not thinking that it could ever happen to them. The truth is that this is a real threat. This lack of privacy is a real issue that will affect you. This abuse of the internet will without a doubt touch your life in some way. Whether it be financially, physically, or in a way that you are not even aware, giving away your privacy is comparative to smoking. You know it is going to kill you, you just don’t know when.
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