Many of us have heard about 1984, the book written by George Orwell. I confess that this was one of the few books which I refused to read in high school, but with Sparknotes summaries, I did figure out what the book was about. What many of us have learned is that we are being watched. We are being watched, in a similar way as in the book, but at the same time we are hidden.
As it was initially published in the media, only telephone records within the US, as well as the calls to and from the US were being monitored, looking for specific patterns that may arise suspicious terrorist activities. Now we are being told that the US is spying other countries, but other countries are doing the same to their citizens, and countries have been sharing this secret information. We are perhaps way too many people to be spied upon, as it would require a great amount of people for us to be monitored all the time. If this has been going on for so long, how could this be kept secret all this time? If too many people had been involved, we would've known this, but even so, it is too much work for one single mind to keep an eye on another all the time.
Do I mind being spied upon? Well it depends. I would compare this information as going with a doctor. I certainly would let the doctor know and see everything as needed if that would do me good, but it would be incorrect and impolite to share and let others see what they shouldn't. You trust a doctor, knowing that your information will be kept secret. The question here is, if your information and activities are found to be suspicious and once they look further into this they find out that you have nothing to hide, will they simply move on or will they put a trace on you for purpose that has nothing to do with the safety of others? You trust that a doctor will not publish or share pictures to bad reputation magazines just as a psychologist will not share your issues or a Catholic priest will not tell anyone about your sins.
What you (a regular person just like me) CAN do is see others' information that is made publicly available. If you are thinking about hiring someone, and that someone allows you to see his or her information thorough a social network, what you want to do is to get as many references as you can in order to see if it is the best match for you or not.
It certainly feels uncomfortable to know that someone is watching you if it is information that you do not wish to share, but if doing this prevents terrible things from taking place, well, what do we do? I strongly agree that the end DOES NOT justify the means, but when we have to choose between privacy and security, we apparently can't have both at the same time. When we have to choose between two or more bad choices, we get an ethical dilemma. The right answer MIGHT be an equilibrium between the two options. If 100% privacy means 100% insecurity, I certainly don't want it, but I also don't wants strangers to know everything about me, being able to hide only what I dream at night. The real dilemma is: how far should we go between one way or the other? As I do not have an answer for that, I am glad this decision is out of my hands.
In regards to Snowden, I really wonder whether he is really in Moscow's airport or not. Just imagine going to the airport for two weeks. You may have plenty of money in your debit card, but will you stay two weeks without a shower? People don't just stay there and take a bath where people wash their hands, as Tom Hanks probably suggested in the Terminal movie. Regular people should have seen him by now unless the airport has a place where people can actually live normally. I guess these places actually exist, but not for regular passengers.
As for Julian Assange, I don't know if he is guilty of what he is being accused of other than Wikileaks, but hiding in a small, known, untouchable place for over a year must be terrible. I certainly wouldn't handle that, especially knowing that you're either stuck there forever doing what you want to do or being stuck elsewhere, possibly forever without being able to do what you want to do. This makes me wonder if people like him or Alex are immune to thins that make most other people suffer. Series like 24 and Prison break, even though they exaggerated and surpassed any possible survival chances for many of the main characters, they may not have exaggerated people's resistance to pain so much. People fighting for good or bad causes often behaved like martyrs.
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