Privacy_and_the_Internet_Thought_Paper

I. INTRODUCTION Benjamin Franklin said “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety” (Reynolds, 2010, p. 113). An individual’s right to privacy in America, afforded by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized” (Reynolds, 2010, p. 117), is exactly the type of essential liberty Mr. Franklin was referencing. A reasonable expectation of privacy establishes a right to privacy, according to United States (U.S.) courts, however current laws do not offer the privacy protection people assume they have (Reynolds, 2010, p. 117). Privacy issues regarding protection from unreasonable intrusion are a topic of hot debate when weighing the need to ensure national security and safety against an individual’s right to privacy, and the debate is elevated when technology, such as the Internet, electronic surveillance, geospatial monitoring, and biometric identification are added to the discussion. Individuals are subjected to and forced to comply with policies regarding the use of these technologies, but the gap between privacy policies and practices needs to be evaluated against ethical considerations, and policy revisions such as new laws and technological solutions should be implemented to provide the proper protections for an individual’s reasonable expectation and right to privacy. It is, therefore, worthwhile to explore privacy policies regarding the use of the Internet, and electronic surveillance. II.PRIVACY POLICIES – PURPOSE, APPLICABILITY AND RESPONSIBILITY Between privacy protection and the law there is a great divide. Privacy was deemed a basic human right in the United Nation’s 1999 Universal Declaration of Human Rights; however the term “privacy” still remains an enigma (Warner and Chun, 2009, p. 75).For the purpose of this discussion, privacy can be divided into two arenas, “the sanctity of the domestic sphere and the ability to keep personal facts from public view” (Insko, 2009, p. 7), and therefore privacy policies should address both the private and public domains. Laws have not maintained the same pace as technological advances, and therefore there is a gap in policy and practices pertaining to protection of privacy and technology. Generally, policies governing Internet use in ones private domain are non-existent, and electronic surveillance, unless one is the target of a federal investigation, is a non-issue in the domestic sphere. Therefore, this paper will focus in on discussing Internet and electronic surveillance privacy policies in the public domain, examining current policies or laws, identifying who these policies or laws apply to, and who is responsible for monitoring and enforcing compliance. A.INTERNET USAGE POLICIES The federal government has Internet policies governing usages for its agency employees, and this author, as a federal government contractor at the Department of Homeland Security, has first-hand knowledge of the rules and regulations regarding monitoring personal use of government furnished equipment to access the Internet. Though the polices vary slightly from agency to agency, the general principles of use are: 1) Internet use (email, fax and messages) will be monitored, 2) limited personal use is allowed and usage timeframes and sites visited are restricted (i.e., no pornographic sites), 3) no applications are to be downloaded from Internet sites without the System Administrator authorization, and 4) violations must be reported to the proper authority and actions will be taken against violators. The Fourth Amendment cannot be used to govern how private employers implement Internet usage policies because these policy actions are not acts of the government, so federal government employees have greater privacy rights than those in private industry who are often recorded on phone calls, have emails monitored, are videotaped on the job, and can be ordered to drug or psychological testing (Reynolds, 2010, 141). The purpose of such Internet usage policies is to protect against abuse and use of company equipment, increase productivity in the workplace, and to monitor employee behavior so as not to allow certain actions to infringe upon the rights of other employees. For example, it is incumbent upon an employer to ensure employees are not harassed or offended by another employee viewing objectionable websites or emailing offensive material, to avoid harassment claims and litigation. B.INTERNET POLICY APPLICABILITY Internet policies implemented by public and private employers must treat all workers the same, and cannot discriminate between part-time and full-time employees, male and female employees, union and non-union, supervisory and non-supervisory employees with regard to applicability of the Internet usage policies. The fair and just ethical approach must be employed to ensure an indiscriminate application of the policies and procedures. Employers need to be able to create an environment where all workers can be productive and Internet usage policies, when implemented and communicated properly, ensure guidelines are establish and boundaries are set for what is and what is not acceptable behavior in the workplace. Computer ethics affect the implementation of Internet usage policies in that it deals with “ethical codes, standards of conduct, and new areas of computer law and policy” (Module 1, 2010), and provides insight into industry standards for codes, conduct and policy. Virtue ethics also are a factor into the implementation of Internet usage policies because, though the policies are documented, communicated, and in full effect, employers trust that their employees display “character traits of honesty, generosity, or compassion” rather than relying on consequences or rules (Module 1, 2010). C.INTERNET POLICY RESPONSIBILITY Private and public sector employers are responsible for establishing, deploying, communicating and enforcing Internet usage policies in the workplace. Employees are equally responsible for reviewing, understanding and agreeing to adhere to Internet usage policies established by employers, and to report any discrepancies or violations to the proper authorities. Congressional representatives are responsible for ensuring laws are updated to reflect the growing capacity of technology such that individual liberties and the premise of a reasonable expectation of privacy are protected. D.ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE POLICIES Post September 11, 2001, new developments in communications technologies have been utilized to ensure national security against foreign and domestic terrorist acts. Previously, the Communications Act of 1934 enacted the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), granting it authority to regulate non-federal government communications (Reynolds, 2010, 121). The Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act enacted in 1968, and later amended in 1986, permitted law enforcement professional to wiretap and use electronics to eavesdrop with a judicial warrant (Reynolds, 2010, 122). The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA), an amendment to the Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, allowed for protections of communications during transit, while in electronic storage, and prohibited recording signaling information, such as trap and trace, “a device that records the originating number of incoming calls for a particular phone number” without a warrant (Reynolds, 2010, p. 123). The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (USA PATRIOT Act) of 2001, passed post-9/11, increased the speed with which law enforcement officials could search phone, medical financial and email records for intelligence gathering (Reynolds, 2010, p. 124). Under the USA PATRIOT Act, federal authorities can obtain information from banks and Internet service providers without a court order and on the basis of an ongoing investigation (Reynolds, 2010, p. 126). These electronic surveillance policies are intended to support the work of law enforcement and counter-terrorist professionals in their pursuit to gather intelligence, thwart terrorist acts, and ensure national security is preserved and American citizens are protected. E.ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE POLICY APPLICABILITY Electronic surveillance policies are applicable not only to citizens and non citizens within the United States, and the USA PATRIOT Act even relaxed foreign intelligence gathering within the U.S. These policies apply to individuals and corporations, but there is a debate about the applicability of the PATRIOT Act to private email. While some say if you want something to remain private do not send it via email, others subscribe to the belief that email is private from a technology perspective because it is encrypted, is not stored on relay mail servers or routers, and the ECPA protects emails in certain circumstances (Ebinger, 2007, p. 48). F. ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE POLICY RESPONSIBILITY Entities responsible for monitoring, regulating and enforcing the use of electronic surveillance include, but are not limited to the FCC, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who carry out many surveillance activities on behalf of the U.S. government, the judicial system because judges often have to issue warrants for surveillance activity, the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Similarly, as in the case of Internet usage policies, Congressional representatives are responsible for ensuring electronic surveillance laws and policies are updated to balance the government’s need to know with the protection of privacy for individuals and corporations. III.CONCLUSION Internet monitoringand electronic surveillance policies affect privacy issues where individual’s email, Internet use, and telephone conversations may be monitored without their consent. Policy disparities are the fact that federal employees’ privacy rights are covered by the Fourth Amendment, but private sector employees do not enjoy the same high level or reasonable expectation of privacy, and that surveillance can be conducted without a proper warrant, under the USA PATRIOT Act, based on the premise of an ongoing investigation. When weighing the right to privacy against the threats to national security, or the possibility that corporate or federal employees may be offended by another’s actions, Internet monitoring and electronic surveillance is necessary, but must be implemented without eroding individual civil liberties, because, as Patrick Henry said, “Give me liberty or give me death.” REFERENCES Ebinger, T. (2007).The USA PATRIOT Act: Implications for Private E-Mail. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 47-64. Insko, J. (2009). The Logic of Left Alone: The Pioneersandthe Conditions of U.S. Privacy. American Literature, 81(4).doi 10.1215/00029831-2009-042. Module 1: Introduction to Ethical Theories (2010). IFSM 304 – Ethics in the Information Age. Document posted in University of Maryland University College online classroom, archived at: http://webtycho.umuc.edu Reynolds, G. (2010), Ethics in Information Technology, 3rd Edition, Course Technology, Cenage Learning. Warner, J.,& Chun, S.A. (2009) Privacy Protection in Government Mashups.Information Polity: The International Journal of Government & Democracy in the Information Age (14), 75-90.doi 10.3233/IP-2009-0169.