Privacy: The Government's From Fear To Facebook

For the past few years, technology is a gateway to forms of communication that rapidly grow with age. The internet has been a helpful tool in solving crimes because of not having to obtain a warrant and to take the time to go through the courts. With people able to manipulate computers and other electronic devices better and quicker than others, this may lead to problems for issues like privacy. This gives a person some control over another person. This is especially bad when it is the government who is manipulating technology faster than the average citizens. In the book, From Fear to Facebook, it talks about how there was a school system that used the technology at a school to spy on the children that use the school’s computers (Levinson). …show more content…
The initial purpose of this surveillance was to track terrorists who may have been plotting to attack the United States, but is now being used to track down the average person for breaking some kind of law (Penny). The government can go on a suspect’s Facebook page and browse through their information or pictures until they find something incriminating about the person and use that convicting information in a court of law. A similar situation to this would be panopticon, a type of prison where a guard can watch what a person is doing without the person knowing that they are being watched. Facebook can be considered a panopticon because the government or police can use Facebook as a way to spy on the users, without the users knowing. There have been many crimes solved through this method. Some of these crimes include robbery, cyberstalking, and the occasional murder …show more content…
Facebook may be a place to catch up with long lost friends, but while catching up with friends, people can share too much information that could jeopardize their lives, not only with the law, but also with their jobs. With this being the norm, there are people like the police, who are using Facebook as a way to surveil people. The police can go online and visit the suspects Facebook profile and as long as the user does not have proper privacy settings, or has limited privacy settings, the police are able to use that information to file a crime. This is not only the case for the police; companies can look at a potential employee’s profile to uncover information that would not be revealed in a resume. For instance, if there are a lot of pictures on a person’s profile of them partying all the time or statuses with foul language, that employer can see that and decide not to hire that person because of the way they are perceived through Facebook. The employers do not want those bad images being associated with the companies’ name. There are many solutions to how a person can control what others can view on a Facebook