The Fear of Surveillance

I was on the search for an article that had to do with privacy related to online communication and online networking. However, there were not many articles that I found that pertained to things that mattered or people would be interested in. Eventually I came across an article that touched on online communication privacy but in a different sense. The article I found was titled Privacy Fears Grow as City Increases Surveillance that was written in 2013 about how Oakland, California was using grant money to monitor the city. They were given a $7 million grant, which was meant to help monitor any terrorist threats, but instead was being more so used for general city surveillance. Some of the things that were being done with this grant include; automated programming software for social media monitoring for police, toll payment tracking, telephone traces, telephone taps, and other security measures. Oakland however isn’t the only city doing this, just one of the newer cities joining the party. The New York Police Department has been doing these types of things for over a decade now. Even smaller cities have different measures of surveillance with in. Nearly every city in America now has phones tapped on the regular and cameras that monitor the general population 24/7.

This is a topic we haven’t exactly talked about in class however it relates to how people act or should act when it comes to non face to face communication. If people knew how much of their actions were probably monitored daily would they act differently? Would they choose to use more face-to-face communication?

I think people would choose alternative types of communication rather than online or over the phone if they knew others were listening or watching. If people wouldn’t choose other methods, I am sure they would at least choose to monitor what they say and how they say it. Whether its talking to a family member or friend you may be less likely to talk about really personal things or post different types of statuses, tweets, pictures, or comments if you knew who was really listening in the backgrounds.

With the way technology is growing and expanding it is interesting to imagine what things may be like with in the next decade. How the different ways to monitor and record the population and how far it can be used or who will be able to use it. Would it be only used by law enforcement or would public employers? Would family be able to use it to watch over kids? The possibilities could be endless where this would go.