Most of you, at least those of you who were born and educated in the United States, probably know that under normal circumstances, you’re protected from warantless searches and seizures. If you’re a citizen of the United States, do you think that seizing personal information about you without your knowledge and without a warrant or due process violates your fourth amendment rights? Do you think you should have a reasonable expectation of privacy when you give a private company such as Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Google personal information – whether you do so via the Internet, telephone or regular mail? And to what extent? If you give your credit card information or your social security number to a private company, do you think that information should be handed over to authorities without due process or warrants? Do you see any inherent danger there?
Here’s an article which appeared yesterday on Reuters’News… read it then come back here and let us know what you think:
“Governments sought information on over 38,000 Facebook users in the first half of 2013 and the No.1 social network complied with most requests, the firm said in its first report on the scale of data inquiries it gets from countries around the world.
The report follows allegations by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden that practically every major Internet company – including Facebook, Google Inc and Microsoft Corp – routinely hands over troves of data on potentially millions of users to national intelligence agencies…
Facebook’s report included secret information requests within the U.S. authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the Patriot Act. U.S. companies are ordinarily prohibited from acknowledging the existence of data requests made under those statutes. Facebook negotiated with the U.S. government in June to begin publishing the total number of data requests it receives without specifying how many are related to law enforcement investigations as opposed to intelligence-gathering efforts…”
To read the rest of this article – click here.
Let’s not make this a political debate — it’s not about politics, it’s about freedom. No one president, no one congress, no one person, is responsible for this. The attacks on 9/11 were not all about destruction and killing Americans — they were about changing the American way of life. Do you think the terrorists were successful in changing the way we live? Do you think our rights are being taken away. Is a little extra security worth the loss of privacy or the loss of basic freedoms?
It’s not about whether you have something to hide or not. Today it may well be that only those who have done something legal need to fear — but what about tomorrow? Are we on a slippery slope?
Please let us know how you feel – and let us all respect each other’s opinion. One of our most basic freedoms is the right to our opinions without condemnation. So tell us what you think — and please respect those who disagree with you.
Is a little extra security worth the loss of privacy or the loss of basic freedoms? No. Not today not tomorrow not ever! What the government has been doing is not ok. I know this has been said many times but here it is again. “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”history.
a resoundng NO!
No, I do not believe private companies should be forwarding personal information about it’s customers to the government without a specific warrant for said data! Otherwise, it does violate all of our fourth admendment rights!
Absolutely not!!!!!
No, I do not believe private companies should be forwarding personal information about it’s customers to the government without a specific warrant for said data! Otherwise, it does violate all of our fourth admendment rights
Hello, to all those who might read this. Your privacy is no longer yours, exclusively to yourself. It may have been at some stage, but for sometime now it has become the interest of those in higher office, whoever they are, wherever they live, they all seem to remain faceless. Now that the internet is the tool used by many to search, send, or to receive, any piece of information that they deem to be important to them. This would also include emails from loved ones in a far off country. We are now on that slippery slope to somewhere, and who would even try to guess where to!! Freedom, Privacy, and all those things we cherish, have to be nurtured, once lost, could be gone forever, but, maybe these are just the ramblings from the older generation who has seen it all before.
Hi,
NO, I don’t think any private company should hand over any information to the government from a user of that company’s facilities. It’s akin to the Post Office opening and reading one’s mail then passing it on to the security services. Good Lord, is nothing sacred these days?
No! If the government wants information on someone they should get a warrant and it should be limited to the information requested (if granted). I am very much against this secrete court and the unlimited collection of data.
No, this should never happen without a court order with a specific charge.
To me it seems that Al Qaeda has won. They acknowledge being behind the 9/11 bombings – the purpose of which was to strike fear into the hearts of Americans and show us that we are not invulnerable to the attacks and senseless killings which our military inflicts on other innocents on a daily basis. They have indeed succeeded – our information is routinely handed over to the governments, the envelopes containing our mail is routinely photographed while at the post office processing centers all of our internet searches, posts (like this) and purchases are tossed into some gigantic algorithm searching for “terrorist patterns”. To quote Colonel Potter of MASH”: “bull pucky”.
This giant spy network certainly didn’t prevent the Boston bombing, did it? To know all our information is fed in to a giant “pattern finder” because we all at some point or other could be held suspect of possible terrorist activity at some point in our past, our present or even our FUTURE actions means our Fourth Amendment rights are merely words on paper.
In answer to your question my answer is unequivocally “NO, our information should NOT be subject to limitless unwarranted search and seizure and we are indeed on a slippery slope into a state of living approaching Communist China in the 1960’s or Russia under Stalin.”
In my opinion until we manage to clean house in Washington from the Supreme Court on down to the lowliest Congressperson, initiate term limits on them all, impose fines and prison sentences for taking any money, gift or favor from outside entities we will continue as we have gone. Money and those who wield it have corrupted our government. As Shakespeare said “Absolute power corrupts absolutely” and the government (no matter which party is supposedly in power) is well on its way to absolute.
Bravo Leslie,
Well said. I could not agree with you more. I was born in the 1040’s and have witnessed all the corruptions in Washington occur with whoever was in “power.”
All the awful tragedies that have plagued us these past few decades are slowly eroding our way of life which is the worst tragedy of them all.
I for one would like to enjoy all the rights and privileges of citizenship in this great country, but I fear that we must first take back our rights from the “elite few” that are running them into the dust.
So my answer is also a resounding NO!
A resounding YES. The world is evolving and we don’t live in Russia, Venezuela or Syria. We need to protect ourselves. If some American citizen is corresponding with terrorists I want to our government to know about it. Sticking our collective heads in the sand won’t make it go away.
While our government agencies failed to pick up on the signs leading up 9/11 or the Boston bombings, the certainly showed their mettle when it came down to finding the perpetrators. Why is it we always get caught with our pants down? Because of the freedoms we do have that guarantee we can move around in our society without undo harassment. I wonder, though, at what time will we all be required to have barcodes tattooed on our wrists that can be read every time we go through checkpoints providing our personal information? Food for thought!
No a thousand times no .. Freedom is precious and they should have to go through all process’s of law to even peek at any information.. Freedom is expensive and to keep it cost even more .
I thnk that we have lost all of our privacy and it is going to get worse when forms go out to “aid” in the new healthcare going into effect.
I do not think that anyone has the right to publish or check into our private matters unless there is a suspicious criminal cause to do so.
NO NO NO–I echo what Nancy said!
(thanks for allowing us to voice our opinions)
I can see both sides of the argument here. If this information helps world governments keep terrorism on a low key, then I have no hesitation in allowing them to access my personal data. In Australia, we have to supply photographic ID for evey mobile phone we buy. I have nothing to hide, so this doesn’t worry me. We know for a fact there are data banks that contain information on almost all our activities, and again, this does not worry me because I have nothing to hide. I consider this my personal contribution to fighting terrorism.
No. It violates the 4th amendment regarding…”the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures…but upon probable cause”…(Amendment #4 to the U.S. Constitution).
Sadly, I now no longer trust the U.S. government, let alone Facebook, to respect this right. Nor do I expect either one to be truthful with the public. Law enforcement often has a critical need for information and, I think, may be less inclined to abuse their research authority.
But the whole purpose of Facebook is to share anything and everything people say or show. Their content IS public… to the whole world. Why would they be trusted to keep traceable information private?
The FISA court has no way to investigate, in a timely manner, all the requests the government claims need immediate action for national security. And the bloated bureaucracy of the government lends itself to lax oversight and diminished sense of personal responsibility.
Does this make us any safer? I guess I’ve become a cynic about this, too. The precious “rights” we have always taken for granted, perhaps cannot be counted upon indefinitely.
Definitely not, unless there is a strong reason.
Couldn’t agree more with all the NO voters. Privacy is almost the last bastion against tyranny.
When it is not obvious when someone is obtaining information on us, it won’t bother us. But if we were delivered a piece of mail by our mail carrier that was already opened then that would certainly infuriate us. Everyone wants some degree of privacy in their lives, but each and every day I can go about my daily business and obtain information about someone’s life merely by chance, by perhaps standing behind them on a supermarket line while they are chatting on their cell phone. Why aren’t these people keeping their conversations private? I do want to control what I feel is a comfortable level of privacy, but if my government needs information about a person or persons suspected of conspiring to do something that will infringe on my God-given freedoms, then I wouldn’t mind allowing them a little leniency in obtaining the information that is needed to either confirm or refute it.
there has to be a need to know and it used to be they had to present to a court those reasons today it is if they want to know and we have stepped over the line giving up our freedoms for a little safety , ask your self what kind of job did they do with all the snooping on the Marathon bombing they sure kept that one from happening . I feel less safe because they could raid your home for no reason at all and just say we heard them say something. If we can not trust our government and we can’t then who can we trust . someone has already be raided because they only wanted to purchase a pressure cooker and a back pack . They had warnings from all over but because they were of Muslim decent they were ignored and many runners can never run again and many will never breathe again. Good job puke.
http://benswann.com/the-most-dangerous-domestic-spying-program-is-common-core/
NO!!! Things are out of control and sharing our info will not do a thing. That type of info should only be shared on a ‘need to know’ basis IF you are suspected of something. But then again just about everyone in the US today is suspect according to the govt.
Absolutely not. Too many freedoms lost equals slavery or worse. Well, that may be a bit much to say, however, I am thinking that we have perhaps given up, even temporarily, too much of our freedoms after 9-11.