Persuasive Essay On Surveillance

Today, Canadian’s lives today are as translucent as ever. Most organizations especially the government constantly watches each and every one of our moves. By definition, surveillance is any systematic focus on any information in order to influence, manage, entitle, or control those whose information is collected. (Bennet et Al, 6). From driving to the shopping mall to withdrawing money from the ATM machine, Canadians are being watched constantly. With Canada’s commitment to advance technology and infrastructure in the 1960s, government surveillance is much easier and much more prevalent than it was hundreds of years ago. Even as early as 1940s, the Dominion Bureau of Statistics used punch cards and machines to determine who is available

Surveillance is not a new thing. In fact, espionage, tracking, and sleuthing were part of society ever since 5000 B.C. But in the rise of the modern era, the idea of surveillance in the public eye serves as a controversial topic of discussion. People everywhere complain about the existence of security cameras, government tracking, and the right to privacy. Such problems, however, are not due to the sudden discovery of surveillance, but the modern abuse of it. Seeing the disastrous effects of over surveillance from George Orwell’s 1984, the public rightfully fears societal deterioration through modern surveillance abuse portrayed in Matthew Hutson’s “Even Bugs Will Be Bugged” and the effects of such in Jennifer Golbeck’s “All Eyes On You”. The abuse of surveillance induces the fear of discovery through the invasion of privacy, and ensures the omnipresence of one’s past that haunt future endeavors, to ultimately obstruct human development and the progress of society overall.

1. Use of on premise security cameras to spy on the activities of fellow employees

As the late Frank Herbert once said, “Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.” Federal electronic wiretapping and supervision dates to the Wiretap Act of 1968, and has only increased in the following decades. Organizations such as the National Security Agency have been empowered by FISA (United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts) to bypass the authority of the Supreme Court in determining constitutional validity on searches. Government Surveillance is unjustified because it infringes upon personal freedoms, does not guarantee safety, and is not a vital necessity.

In Brian Trent’s article, Technology and Tomorrow: A Challenge to Liberty, Trent describes how electronic surveillance has increased and how it will continue to spread amongst people. In Craig Silverman’s article, Smile, Big Brother’s watching, Silverman explains that the amount of time and surveillance that corporations conduct over employees is increasing, but having some negative effects. Both of these articles explain how electronic surveillance will increase so much, that almost everyone will be able to be seen when not in the open [monitored]. In this essay I’ll be going more in depth to describe both articles and I’ll explain whether I agree with their arguments and why.

Everyone today is being monitored in some way, shape, or form whether you know it or not. Some of the employees, such as patient care technicians and nurses, at the Florida Hospital Celebration Health are being tracked every step they take. In each badge there is a sensor that calculates how many times a worker visits their patient’s room and the nurse’s station. They have had this form of a tracking mechanism for over 35 years (Katz 1). This is just another illustration of how people are tracked unnecessarily

In May of 2013 Edward Snowden leaked NSA documents revealing that the organization had been, warrantlessly spying on U.S. citizens, via the internet. (Britannica) The information leaked showed that the NSA had been tapping phones and monitoring citizen’s text messages, emails and social media. (NPR) Snowden has said that he brought these documents to light, not to discredit the government’s method, but to expose it’s methods. Snowden wanted to allow the people of the United States to decide for themselves. (Britannica)

In the years of government surveillance has improved in many ways such as the technology and advancing the fundamental ideals of individuals rights, they use the technology to avoid many terrorist attack. The government preferably and advancing the fundamental ideals of individual rights, they use technology to avoid a numerous of restrictions on surveillance on common civilians. Between the citizens of this country, there is a rising concern for the issue of privacy due to such a powerful creation, in this case the Utah Date Center, as they feel that they are feeling a severe violation on the rights that they had previously considered impenetrable. In order to stop these concerns, Congress should consider endorsing a law that seeks to join the government’s use of technology to our Constitutional values.

The right to privacy was not established as a constitutional doctrine until after the result of the Supreme Court ruling in the 1965 case of Griswold vs. Connecticut. The court decision was based on the interpretation of several amendments within the Bill of Rights. Although the Bill of Rights does not explicitly state anything about the right to privacy, a combination of its sections was used as the framework for establishing the right (“Griswold v. Connecticut (1965),” 2007).

Today, individuals are sacrificing privacy in order to feel safe. These sacrifices have made a significant impact on the current meaning of privacy, but may have greater consequences in the future. According to Debbie Kasper in her journal, “The Evolution (Or Devolution) of Privacy,” privacy is a struggling dilemma in America. Kasper asks, “If it is gone, when did it disappear, and why?”(Kasper 69). Our past generation has experienced the baby boom, and the world today is witnessing a technological boom. Technology is growing at an exponential rate, thus making information easier to access and share than ever before. The rapid diminishing of privacy is leaving Americans desperate for change.

Workplace surveillance has become a controversial issue in the workplace environment. The technological surveillance has developed as a necessity, it doesn’t only help in monitoring what the workers’ do, but it also helps to know how they do it. The modern technological development may have helped the employers’ to have an aerial view of the workplace environment, but it has created a controversy between the employees’ and the employer about the employees’ right to privacy being violated. The employees’ believe the act of workplace surveillance to be hateful that violates their right to privacy and liberties. The surveillance at the workplace often effects workers mental health, productivity, future success in their work and their relationship with the employer, despite being a necessity for the employers’ to protect themselves against the liability, many employers’ in the process of achieving efficiency through surveillance mistakenly ruin their relationship with their employees. The workplace surveillance is helpful in improving the performance of workers or it is contributing towards degrading the performance of workers and their work relationships.

Many employers appoint surveillance within the workplace for a variety of reasons such as safety, prevention of theft or misuse and performance checks. The issues identified within this article are that of whether the monitoring that was carried out was necessary or whether

Generally, employers are concerned about the various issues that could transpire in the workplace such as poor performance, viewing of inappropriate and derogatory things on the organization's equipment, lower productivity, and injuries on the job (“Managing Workplace Monitoring”, 2016). Therefore, “employers also have a duty to their employees to protect the privacy and confidentiality of the personal information gathered and maintained in the course of employment (“Managing Workplace Monitoring”, 2016, para. 1). Moreover, the main reason for monitoring employees is solely tied into limiting the amount of litigation the organization can potentially be subjected to. Therefore, to minimize exposure and risk to

Our society would not survive in the 21st century without the help of electronic surveillance. Safety is one of the main purposes of electronic surveillance. Safety is the state of being secure and free from danger of any sort. Today, many would rather give up their privacy for safety (Smithsimon). In fact, surveillance gadgets such as cameras, radio tracking chips and house alarms are used in many places to ensure safety. For instance, a parent can easily place a hidden camera in a stuffed animal in order to see how the babysitter handles his or her child (Public Places Have Eyes). Cameras are also used to ensure safety on school premises. According to the GCC College Safety website, "the college has an extensive system of surveillance

Managers use electronic monitoring to investigate possible employee wrongdoing or dishonesty. For instance, some managers’ view monitoring as a means to combat employee theft of goods and time. Employers are increasingly using electronic surveillance to protect trade secrets and other intangible property interests. Therefore, employers endorse monitoring functions as an unbiased measure of the