It’s time to renew the debate over Big Brother once again—on June 1st, Section 215 of the controversial Patriot Act is set to expire. Section 215 is the big one; the provision that allows for the examination of the phone calls of every U.S. citizen, although it is claimed that the contents of the calls are never checked. While the revisions to any sections of the Patriot Act aren’t usually debated, a fair deal of attention has been brought to Section 215’s renewal thanks to John Oliver and Last Week Tonight, and a nice little surge of awareness articles. Hopefully this surge will be able to draw in a large enough number of people who, at the very least, are able to be noticed.
I’m not going to take a specific side on this issue throughout the contents of this short article, but rather use this space as a means to conjure up a sense of awareness. It’s obvious to state, but we live in a society where technology serves as its backbone and everything we do is through the means of technological devices. It’s only natural that our communications are achieved, but the problem lies in whether or not these archives should be accessed or not. A friend of mine is quite invested, and has written many papers on the subject. I’d like to believe that she hit the nail on the head with this point below when I inquired her opinion on the matter:
“The Patriot Act has been frequently argued to undermine the American ‘right to privacy.’ While that right is not actually established, the act does go against what we stand for as a democracy with free speech. Our speech may not be regulated, but it is being watched for terms or phrases that may cause red flags. I think it only creates a more government weary public, rather than a stronger government power over terrorism or threats.”
At the end of the day, we’re will have to ultimately decide whether or not we want a safety (through security) net in this age of obscurity—whether we accept monitoring in order to seek out terrorists and other transient perpetrators in the rare instances where we actually find them, or if we want to stay old fashioned and refuse to let monitoring act as a bi-product of fear on a country that once asserted that it would refuse to let terrorism effect its lifestyle.
Ian Barbour