Edward Snowden, a former government intelligence contractor, released information about the U.S. surveillance programs. He claimed that "being patriotic doesn't mean simply agreeing with your government." Luckily, he had civil liberties groups call a pardon and Obama allowed him to to return to the U.S. after he had tried to flee from the U.S. to Russia and got stuck there in 2013. If Obama had not pardoned him, Snowden would have faced changes under the 1917 Espionage Act which doesn't allow for "public interest" or "whistleblowers" and it would be hard for him to explain himself in court. Edward has decided to serve a term in prison before he leave Russia. Those who are against Snowden say he should face trail in the U.S. and should not be granted a pardon because he had made it more difficult to find terrorists when he exposed the surveillance programs. Snowden believes our rights are being violated because our phone conversations are being breached. As the director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, he's trying to figure out a tool to help journalists from being watched on the internet. Everyone needs their privacy. I choose this article because I felt it was an interesting topic to dive into. We were discussing privacy in class and I found this article under the New York Times which is relevant and has an ethical issue in it. The Author, Steven Erlanger, has been in the journaling business since 2004. Before then, he was a professor at Harvard University from 1974 –1983. He is very educated and is currently working for the New York Times as a Journalist. What Edward Snowden did was completely ethical because the government doesn't have the right to watch our every move on the internet or calls when we want privacy. We deserve to have to do things peacefully because if the government doesn't trust us, their own citizens, then why should we trust them. To give trust takes trust which means they need to allow us to live privately. Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/17/world/europe/edward-snowden-defending-his-patriotism-says-disclosures-helped-privacy.html?ref=technology
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Civil Liberties groups called for a coalition to talk to the Department of justice about their police face recognition database after it was discovered that about half of Americans are on this database unregulated. A letter was written by 51 other advocacy groups and The Civil Liberties Union about how this facial recognition database oversees and affects communities of color. The Center of Privacy and Technology reports the police department can be a pose on privacy and free speech because some of these photos are taken secretly at public protests or demonstrations. The system is most likely going to falsely accuse innocent people who are Caucasian and African American because the technology's algorithms aren't as accurate with people who have lighter or darker complexion. The report also noted that "Face recognition can and should be used to respond to serious crimes and public emergencies. It should not be used to scan the face of any person, at any time, for any crime".
I chose this article because it had an interesting topic. Personally, I didn't know they're just taking innocent American photos and putting them in their database, I thought it was just mug shots of the people who had committed a crime. I believe this article is credible enough because the author, Michelle Mark, graduated from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism recently, and has previously worked for Canadian Press and International Business Times. The ethical issue in this article is the thought of knowing you're being racially profiled through our Police Department. If the algorithm is more likely to read inaccurately of people who are Caucasian or Black, the police department shouldn't be using this. Especially if the system is searching through photos secretly taken of innocent people at public protest. Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/police-using-facial-recognition-databases-with-almost-no-oversight-2016-10 Instead of fitness tacking devices monitoring your health for your benefit, researchers are tracking people in Singapore, within the age of 21 to 65, to see if these devices help motivate people to work out. The Journal of the American Medical Association came to conclude these devices do not help people want to exercise. On top of that, they decided to give financial rewards or cash if they wore the fit devices and actually exercise as a trail for 6 months. People started vigorous workouts for the 6 months for the cash but after a year, they returned their habits that had at the beginning of the trial. Another study had by the same Journaling company were noticing that the people who are wearing the fit devices were loosing more weight than the ones who conducting standard exercises.
The Guardian is a pretty trustworthy journaling company with knowledgeable and credible writers. The reason why I had chose this article is because Fitbit devices are pretty popular within our generation. The ethical issue in this article is that they are monitoring people who are wearing fit devices for their research. They're tracking people and linking up their fit bit to their insuring company for rewards. This is going against our privacy rights and releasing it to our insurance which is bad for us because some of us have health issues and need the most out of their insurance to help us live beyond our expectancy. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/oct/04/fitness-trackers-do-not-increase-activity-enough-to-noticeably-improve-health |