President elect Barack Obama is currently in the process of a presidential transition. This doesn’t only entail picking a new desk for the oval office and drapes for the windows. It requires getting used to an entirely new lifestyle. One change that everyone is talking about is how Barack Obama will have to relinquish his BlackBerry. Apparently, “aides are concerned that his unofficial conversations would become part of the presidential record, subject to subpoena and eventually made public as part of the country's historical record” (Schneier). What does this mean for the privacy of the president? And, more importantly, what does this mean for us?
Everything we do in this day and age is recorded and one day our irresponsible cyber-actions might come back to haunt us. Most of us who live in the information age acknowledge that everything we do is being documented, but we don’t care, yet. Mark Foley learned his lesson when he sent inappropriate e-mails to underage Washington pages in 2006. Even Paris Hilton and Sarah Palin have had their phones and e-mail accounts hacked, respectively.
I am not concerned about Barack Obama giving up his BlackBerry. This is not a sign of the times; it is a sign of becoming president. Everything Barack does will be closely monitored and secured under the Presidential Records Act. “The President-elect will have to get used to handing his glass to a Secret Service agent every time he has a drink outside the White House. The agent carries a small bag in which to pop the glass and later he destroys it. The idea is to ensure that no unauthorized person has access to the Presidential DNA, but it is not clear how an enemy would use it.” He can never even go to the bathroom by himself anymore. So when it comes to Barack’s privacy and public access, the BlackBerry is only one more thing that every president will have to agree to sacrifice.
We should be concerned about our own privacy and how to ensure private matters stay private. In his article, Brian Schneier makes a great point that “privacy isn't about having something to hide; it has enormous value to democracy, liberty, and our basic humanity.” We shouldn’t have to worry about deleted Facebook pictures posted in 2006 if we are looking for a job in 2012. Furthermore, conversations that happened at an earlier date can be misinterpreted by a third party to prove false accusations.
Perhaps Barack should work on laws to ensure our privacy in a technological age that’s advancing exponentially. If he is so technologically savvy, he should be able to identify the ensuing privacy issues and protect our rights accordingly.
Sources:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122722381368945937.html
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2008/11/09/barack-obama-what-life-will-be-like-for-new-us-president-115875-20881650/
1 comment:
First let me say that I am surprised that the President-elect hasn't already given up his Blackberry. You would think that since he's already started to outline future economic policies and talked about possibilites for foreign policy, that he would give up his phone asap. It only makes sense, since I'm sure he's got things on there that could be detrimental to his Precidency.
Anyways, my direct thought after reading this article is that its going to be hard to enact policy laws without treading on individuals constitutional rights. While I agree that there needs to be work done to correct social network privacy issues, I feel it also takes a websites rights away. If people are willing to sign up for things or do embarassing things now, they should be responsible in the future. On the other thand, I also agree that people make mistakes and obviously change over time. In this way, I would love to see Mr. Obama enact laws, i.e., facebook owning your pictures, or stolen emails or phone numbers being published on the web.
While it is impossible to watch over everything that is posted on the web, maybe it is time to enact special web-based laws that limit it. Who ever said that the internet was suppose to be used the way we are using it currently? So change it, or take back control at least in our country and hope that others follow suit. The higher the penalties towards things like posting illegal pictures or phone conversations, the less likely someone will do them.
Unfortunately we will never be able to completely police the web. So people will have to take responsiblity for their actions. Even if they were back when you weren't even thinking about the future and things like jobs.
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