Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Carly Haeck: "To assure our county's freedom, the government should be able to spy on its citizens."
Yes, spying on citizens would certainly weed out criminals and threats to the government, as we saw in 1984. But the act of spying takes away our country's freedom in itself. Installing telescreens in public places would be acceptable, because people surrender their privacy when going out in public. But to spy on people in their own homes is violating their rights. What constitutes as behavior worth spying on? We read how people living in Oceania were often imprisoned for talking in their sleep about rebelling against the government. Can the government really argue that unconscious babble is grounds for arrest?
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4 comments:
I agree to a certain degree, but have a couple of bones to pick. Firstly: is there a difference between believing that you have freedom and actually having freedom? If you believe that you are free, you are more likely to act that way, whether you are or not, so if the government did this is secret, nothing would really change except that we, as citizens, would be safer overall (assuming of course that the government acts responsibly, which is a big assumption).
Secondly: Yes, the government can argue that unconscious babble is grounds for arrest, or at least a more in depth investigation. This is because the brain stews about during sleep and can spew forth thoughts which you actually have.
Eric Lombardo
I agree with Eric, but i do think you have a very good point that spying on private residences is an illegal, immoral practice. I think that no one should be exempt from the law, not even the government.
by the way that last one was Johannes Harkins. I forgot to label it
I agree with all of your comments. In the book spying was considered as a protection system and making sure people weren't doing anything that they weren't suppose to be doing.But, the question I keep asking myself, what if we were to have a system like that, and the government never gave us any privacy,or let us do the simplist like, write in a our own journal. That would be torture to a lot of people, don't you agree?
-Keira W
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