Should digital privacy be an expectation in the 21st century? Although I doubt the NSA will stop looking through our privacy, I believe that digital privacy shouldn't be seen without permission. This also "takes away" our freedom in the internet. People we do not even know are looking at our private information and listening/knowing what we are saying/doing.
In Schneier's commentary, "The Eternal Value of Primacy," he states, "Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance." This means that one day if the government abuses their own power, privacy will be our weapon. If they're already looking at our privacy, we are defenseless. We are vulnerable. We also do not know much information about the government's privacy. It's completely blocked off.
In Rushkoff's commentary,"NSA's phone snooping a different kind of creepy," he states, "We're all walking around with tracking devices in our pockets, which are capable not simply of broadcasting our phone calls, but our physical locations, our movements, our interests..." The NSA almost know everything about us. This is beyond creepy. It's just stalking with permission. They know EVERYTHING.
If people support the NSA's phone snooping only because they say it's for discovering a terrorist plots, I have a counter rebuttal. Has the phone snooping ever even discover a terrorist plot? How do we even know they're not just saying this and actually peep on us to keep us on a leash? Why aren't they using this to track down criminals?
This world is a very scary place. The government probably never even meant to tell us about the NSA secretly watching us. Like me, Schneier believes that since the government knows about our private moments this is no longer freedom. In this world, the only one you can truly trust is none other than ourselves.
