For you literary pleasure......again.

Just a little something I wrote back in July 2003. I thought it was time to revisit.

 Over the years I have observed that society, in the United States, has increasingly chipped away at the Right to Privacy of individual American citizens. Primarily due to the significant increase in information technology, many Americans, through the actions of their legislators, appear to support the steady erosion of individual liberty for the sake of a blurry sense of security. Furthermore, with a high profile and over exposed media, many issues that affect the few are being exaggerated to promote legislation that affect the many.  Lost in the shuffle are the rights for people to be “left alone,” to be “anonymous” or in some cases to private self-expression, all of which fall under the Right to Privacy argument currently being discussed nationally. Consequently, we are presented with a national ethical dilemma; does the security of the majority outweigh the individual liberty of law-abiding citizens?
      For example, legislation known as the “Patriot Act” recently passed Congress in response to the events on 9-11-2001, which provides law enforcement organizations unprecedented access the personal and private communications and computer files of individuals suspected of, or in some way affiliated with terrorist activities.
     Technology has also risen to the point where Video Face Identification programs may soon be put in place in many urban centers. This technology will provide law enforcement with the ability to scan thousands of face captures in the pursuit of criminals and terrorists.
     The marketplace has long been a part of the problem, requiring government-issued identification for consumers to make purchases by check or to use a credit card. When applying for credit, applying for a job, making major purchases, opening a checking account or visiting a doctor’s office, a driver’s license or social security card is necessary.
     So what is the ethical issue involved? It is privacy, pure and simple. The Constitution of the United States declares that all citizens are guaranteed certain rights to privacy, but it does not say that a citizen must possess government-supplied identification in order to exercise God-given rights. Nor does it say that the government or the citizenry have a right to infringe upon those rights for the sake of security, except in the most dire of situations. 9-11 was indeed a significant event that required action on the part of the government, but I believe that the resulting legislation was a knee-jerk reaction that threatens the individual liberty of all that it was created to protect. Even more disturbing is the fact that many citizens are more than willing to give up their constitutionally granted rights for the sake of security, believing that if you haven’t done anything wrong that you have nothing to fear. This is dangerous thinking because this reasoning can be applied over and over to many different situations, resulting in, following a logical conclusion, Totalitarianism or Fascism. As one who values the liberty enjoyed by Americans since the country’s inception, I am loath to relinquish a single liberty for any reason and am inclined to believe that the answer is more freedom, not less.
     I also believe that this reasoning flies in the face of true ethics, since we give up believing in the responsibility and sensibility of the individual for government directed beliefs and morals. Therefore, ethics are lost because we give up the right to keep personal information private, along with the ability to make individual choices (autonomy). We become driven to practice right and wrong and abiding by the law (Non-maleficence), not from self-imposed direction but due to fear of the penal consequences applied by the authorities. Lastly, we lose the true essence of Justice, whereby the government gains a supremely unequal and elevated position that makes individual civil disobedience and expression all but impossible.
     If all Americans were properly educated in the declarations and guarantees of the Constitution and were more apt to pay greater attention to the daily events of our government, I believe that the majority would be shocked by the ongoing legislative destruction of individual liberty. Our current demanding lifestyle and culture prevents us from actually keeping watch on our elected representatives. We are all just too busy, to our detriment.