Nothing to Hide - Article Review

In the article, “Nothing to Hide”. Elizabeth discusses how the government continues to use mass-surveillance programs to spy on Americans for safety reasons. Personally, I don’t believe I’ve ever been intentionally monitored by the government but I do believe that as a joined society, we must make sacrifices for our safety and security from terrorism and other threats.

The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution guarantees our right to privacy, but I believe we must take into account that our country is under constant threat from domestic and foreign terrorism. We may have “Nothing to Hide” but the government doesn’t know that. I also believe that we simply shouldn’t post anything online that we wouldn’t want anyone else to see. We learned that at a young age when the internet was greatly expanding not to post certain things online and in the event that something bad is found out, that’s really giving up our right to privacy because anything is accessible online.

I have never really been concerned with mass surveillance because simply I didn’t do anything wrong and I realize that there are some horrible people that want to cause harm in our country and as citizens, we really aren’t able to protect ourselves from things like that. In the study in the article, college students stated that they would be concerned about the government looking at “adult content, online shopping, and google searches” that they have looked at online but I don’t think the government cares about any of that. All they want is to focus on threats, and I believe people need to realize that.

As long as the government doesn’t take it too far with surveillance such as digging into our personal lives and letting it get in the wrong hands, then I believe we should allow them to use surveillance to catch criminals because how else are they going to find them? Yes, we have a right to privacy but if we’re not doing anything illegal or talking about planning anything illegal online or anywhere else, then I don’t think we should be worried.