It is becoming increasingly more evident in todays society that technology has become essential to the happenings of everyday life.

Technology such as flash drives, laptops, cell phones, PDAs, ipods, and even the occasional multifunctional gaming device have become ubiquitous items. However, technologies presence in all facets of life creates issues. Technology is used in the hope that it will make life easier and improve the standard of living for everyone, while unintentionally paving the way for an unseen foe. This foe threatens our privacy every day, without our knowledge. The frightening thing being, this foe who threatens our privacy and the government who is bound by law to protect us are one in the same. This ongoing debate between the privacy and security of the American public arose due to the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. This attack left American citizens feeling disconcerted. These feelings of disorder and confusion sparked debate about Americas safety and capability of defending against further terrorist attacks. It was a common feeling that as a country we should have been able to predict and foil these attacks before they had a chance of becoming a threat. It was this debate that lead to the bigger issue of privacy versus security. McMahon states, Information stands as our first line of defense, and determining the United States governments access to and its lawful yet effective use of information is the single most important core element of reorganizing our nations defense infrastructure and counterterrorism efforts after Sept. 11, 2001. It is this statement that clearly summarizes the topic of this raging debate. Does the technology and methods used by the Department of Defense violate the expectation of privacy of American citizens or are they necessary in ensuring the security of the nation? Security, according to dictionary.com, is defined as freedom from danger or risk. Security in the sense of the protection of the citizens of a country by the government and officials chosen to represent the nation requires means of protection. Means of protection refers to things like ID checks, video cameras, massive databases, data mining, wholesale surveillance measures, national ID cards, warrantless eavesdropping, and monitoring of social interactions (Schneier). It is these actions and technology that allow for the government of the United States of America to protect its citizens from dangers such as terrorism. The term that has now come to mean the protection of citizens from possible dangers or risks using advancing technologies and data that either already exists or can be gathered using is counterterrorism. Security, in various political philosophies, takes priority over autonomy and liberty. Government accepts the important role of being the protectors of security of people and their belongings. For centuries western political philosophy has supported the idea of a social contract (Chandler). The social contract allows for the voluntary dismissal of some of an individuals rights or freedom for the protection and security afforded by government (Chandler). This idea, even though it is old and seemingly outdated, still holds true even today. Citizens must relinquish some of their freedoms to receive the protection that government is capable of providing. This idea can be

traced to the origins of America and the Constitution by which we operate. Our nation and the Constitution are connected to and based on John Lockes writings about Civil Government, in which he details the primary purpose of government to be the expansion and protection of the three natural rights that men should possess: life, liberty, and property (Roland). If the government did not protect these rights as it is supposed to do, others would have the ability to take these rights from another individual. It can then be derived that it is the job of government to provide security, from threats like terrorism, to its citizens to ensure their rights, such as privacy. Security allows for preemptive action in order to protect citizens from terrorism (Taipole). Preemptive action is based on the premise that one knows information that allows for the prediction of occurrences so as to prevent them. Preemptive action therefore requires government to obtain and sort information using the technology that is necessary. If the government was asked to provide probable cause or reasonable suspicion for each individual that it wishes to obtain information on preemptive action would be impossible, putting the nation at risk. For example, if the government decided to monitor suspected terrorist communication channels or purchases of firearms to try and detect terrorist activity, valuable information could be lost if government were required to provide proof of suspicion in every case. Events that have the potential to take place can only be anticipated using behaviors or connections in the present time or in the past. Since terrorist now have the overwhelming ability to hide in broad daylight amongst U.S. citizens perimeter defense is no longer going to cut it (Taipole). Ever advancing technology requires change. One such change must be made to citizens expectation of privacy. Privacy is not the same as it was many years ago. The increasing ease with which connections can be made around the world due to popular networking sites creates little anonymity with any information. Information is easily located and obtained. This presents much worry to citizens privacy especially when someone decides to monitor you. Since this information is already readily available, government should use the technology available to acquire information needed to ensure the security of its people. Counterterrorism requires such resources so as to ensure its success. This success is foiled by the existing expectation of privacy in that it is premised on the idea that data and information once scarcely available is accessible to those with the means. Inconsistencies and loss of information allowed for privacy to be seen as something that was difficult to lose. However, in modern times privacy is becoming increasingly hard to maintain without assistance. Individuals typically want a relatively high level of privacy. However, this idea needs to be extinguished given that a high level of privacy would mean complete exclusion from the outside world and the people in it. Some privacy must be relinquished in order to form relationships with others. No person can have complete privacy otherwise they would do no more than remain locked in their place of residence by themselves. If people knew everything about you it would be difficult to form any relationships. Therefore, security is a required component of privacy.

The USA Patriot Act extinguished privacy and allowed for use of technology to monitor possible threats to the U.S. and its citizens. The Patriot Act was signed by George W. Bush on October 26, 2001 and, according to Wikipedia, it reduced the restrictions on law enforcement agencies capability to use means they deem fitting to fight terrorism while also expanding the definition of terrorism to encompass domestic terrorism as well. The Patriot Act lifted restrictions on law enforcement agencies ability to monitor telephone, e-mails, medical, financial, and other things while also easing restrictions on gathering foreign intelligence (Wikipedia). Privacy, according to Schneier, is an inherent right. It is a necessity in the maintenance of ones self and their condition. Privacy aids in our protection against abuses by those in power. Proponents of the privacy issue fear the abuse of power or misuse of power that could result from the technology used in making the country secure. A misuse of power that aids in a greater misuse can be seen in the admission of law. Judges tend to defer their interpretations of the law in matters involving national security. The majority, representative of the higher ranking official tend to lean towards the requests that benefit them, which turns privacy into a second option. The reason this is an issue is due to the modernizations in information technologies has created new concerns. A fair level of privacy in regard to personal information was provided due to technological limits on storage, communication, and cross-referencing of this information with other information. Be that as it may, advances in information technology have made it possible to collect and sort through large amounts of personal information. Through methods like data surveillance or dataveillance refers the systematic use of personal data systems in the investigation or monitoring of the actions or communications of one or more persons (Schneier). Citizens need not be subject of this abuse of power to watch people until they possibly commit a crime. We do no wrong when we are in the privacy of our bedrooms or bathrooms. People do not seek private places to hide anything. Privacy can be viewed as basic human need. Life where people are constantly watched and scrutinized would be similar to life in former East Germany, or in Iraq under Saddam Hussein (Schneier). Technology allows governments and businesses to collect, store, analyze, and disseminate enormously large amounts of information involving daily activities (McMahon). This allows them to monitor citizens and watch for terrorist activity. For example, automated data mining applications analyze databases of information on a specific person or group of people (McMahon). Security over privacy creates risks due to many of the methods for which the government and some agencies use to investigate terrorism. The government uses backdoors or access points to ensure access to private communication and data stored for government purposes (McMahon). This creates susceptibility in the technologies that are widely used by the public casing third party exposure issues and further creates privacy issues. An example of this can be seen in a 2006 scandal involving the wiretapping of the Greek government. Lawful interception capabilities made into mobile phones was hacked by an unknown party and intercepted communications by the Prime Minister and other officials. The same backdoor risk is present software that is vulnerable to similar hacking. The risks associated with

vulnerable information and communications technologies are not limited to identity theft, the loss of privacy, or the loss of valuable business information. A good example of the susceptibility created by products made with backdoors is seen in the RFID tags, once used to track animals on farms (Dourish, and Anderson). These tags are cheap and can be placed in products for inventory management reasons, while also enabling new types of electronic monitoring (Dourish, and Anderson). It has become increasingly more evident through growing concerns about the issue of security of the nation versus the privacy of the citizens from the government that due to advances in technology that aid counterterrorism that an issue does exist between security and privacy. This advance in technology causes counterterrorism efforts to violate citizens privacy in one sense, while in another it permits the government to protect Americans because they can detect terrorists and their activities before they become a threat. The privacy view is best reflected in a quote from Cardinal Richelieu in which he said, If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged (Schneier). However, the security side of the arguments view is that terrorism is an issue and security is necessary for citizens to have the privacy they want. The issue requires compromise between the expectation of privacy that citizens have and the security that the government feels is necessary.