Can you remember the time when the only way to learn about the happenings around the country/world was either one of two ways: Reading the newspaper, or watching the evening news? It seems like only yesterday that I was a 12-year-old reading the paper, just for the purpose of finding an article to use for my “current event.” Socialization was another story, since we all actually had to walk to a friend’s house and ring the doorbell on the off-chance that they’d maybe want to play outside. There was no way for “big brother” to track every and every action you made, since there was no documented/digital trace of said actions.
The Internet has changed all that. Many people would be shocked to learn that, for example, if you were taking a Criminology class and your dissertation was on Child Pornography, a Google search on that topic would have you flagged by the FBI. For trying to bring light to an ongoing problem?
Many have brought up keeping the Web separate from the Internet itself; the Web is to the Internet like an App is to your iPhone -the former needs the latter in order to exist, but the two can function independently. But this won’t likely happen in the near future, so until then, our right to privacy (in others’ eyes) is no longer a “right”, since it is constantly being infringed upon by government agencies that police it. To that point, I leave you with this: If you aren’t doing anything wrong to begin with, why get so worked up if you indeed have nothing to hide?
Yet, the debate rages on after decades of back-and-forth between both sides…