Has The Government Taken It’s Device Surveillance To0 Far?
First, I thought this was just a government thing. Now it’s hitting the private sector like never before. Just how legitimate is it for the government to invade our privacy like it does?
The Facts
Apple received at least 4,000—if not 5,000-requests by the police to tap into their devices by the end of May 2012. This totals over 10,000 accounts associated with this company’s being surveyed. Probably most of these incidences took place without the private citizen even knowing about it. Is this really legal?
Is It Legal, and Necessary?
It seems harmless when I learn more about why Apple phones were tapped. Many of the cases involved solving crimes such as abductions, robberies, and other harmful offenses. Some incidences of tapping even helped prevent suicides.
Most of the situations where phone tapping was requested involved the police. However, the maker of iPhones, iPads, iPods, and Mac computers also admitted to allowing the government to intervene concerning matters of national security. However, the company supposedly doesn’t know exactly how many requests were made and when. Chances are the government didn’t want the statistics revealed–at least that’s what I would assume.
At any rate, tapping into phone lines is not a new phenomena. This has happened since as early as the 1890s when the first telephone was invented. When attempting to stop a famous bootlegger in his tracks during the Prohibition Era, it was declared constitutional. However, as early as 1967 the use of wiretapping required a warrant.
Therefore, it probably is legal. However, the entire basis of the U.S. Constitution is to make sure the person’s privacy is protected. The government needs to be monitored by the people to ensure they don’t cross the line. They can’t just arbitrarily spy on people just because they feel like it.
It’s Not Just Apple
Microsoft and Facebook also received requests for personal information by law enforcers. Incidentally, Facebook received just about double the amount of requests during the last half of 2012 than Apple did within the past six months. Facebook reported having complied with about 80 percent of the requests they received.
The Ease of Information Access
Concerning government tapping, the Cloud seems to have changed everything. People can access their information on the go at their convenience. However, it’s a bit scary that other people can retrieve it as well. Anyone in the public or private sector could hack us if they want to.
Are there ways around it? Different anonymous ip addresses can be used, but sooner or later the possibility of uncovering hidden identities still exists. Furthermore, when we back up all of our phone an e-mail contacts to the web we are leaving ourselves vulnerable.
The government may have the right under certain circumstances to tap into “The Cloud” to obtain our data more easily. However, as long as we still have the freedom not to let the government have our information, we should not give it to them by not uploading it online.
By Erin Walsh
Erin Walsh is the Director of Public Relations for Boost Software. She is an avid blogger that enjoys sharing her knowledge with the everyday computer user, by helping them with common errors especially error 1722, error 1719, error 0x80070424, and error 0x80004004 at the PC Health Boost Blog.
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