Essay on a controversial topic with annotated bibliography

¶ … component graded.

The amassing of data has become an integral process of life in the 21st century (Nunan and Di Domenico, 2013, p. 2). This fact is partially reflected by the fact that in contemporary times, people are generating much more data than they previously did. Every time someone goes shopping and makes a purchase with a credit card, receives a call or sends a text message, or visits a web site on a computer or downloads information to a mobile phone application, they are generating data. This data is stored and, through sophisticated processes of analytics that involve data mining and even predictive capabilities, is analyzed to determine aspects of consumer, individual, and collective behavior. The generation of these massive quantities of data in the myriad forms such data takes at the rapidity of real-time access is known as big data, which government representatives claim they are analyzing to prevent terrorist acts. Nonetheless, a look at some of the most pertinent issues regarding the storage and analytics of big data reveals that in a quite subtle way, the amassing and analysis of this data is slowly eroding basic rights to privacy afforded to citizens in the United States.

Most people did not become aware of the term Big Data and its implications until the Edward Snowden Security breach of the National Security Agency (NSA). Snowden revealed some little known facts to Americans, namely that records from their phone calls, emails, and internet activity was being stored, analyzed, and monitored by the government (Hackett, 2013, p. 27). Moreover, he posed his elucidation of these facts within the context in which he viewed himself as a patriot and was helping Americans to realize that there was a possible abuse of these technologies -- mobile, telephone, and the internet -- and that their privacy might be suffering as a result. However, within the wake of these revelations many government officials came forward and stated that such big data was actually being collected and scrutinized to prevent terrorist attacks -- which is well aligned with the predictive capacities of big data technology. This defense of the storage of Big Data, however, is insufficient in light of the following warrants regarding its deployment as an invasion of privacy.

One of the most effective means of proving the fact that government storage of big data about the lives of private citizens is invading their privacy is in utilizing an analogy of this electronic surveillance with typical video camera surveillance. It is critical to understand that the reason citizen's rights to privacy is being invaded by governmental big data practices is because these technologies monitor communication. Without the telephone and internet-based communication, it is virtually impossible to communicate with someone when they are not within one's physical proximity. Therefore, the governmental agencies effectively have a monopoly to access every thing any one conveys to someone else. The analogy that proves the violation of privacy taking place with this occurrence relates to video camera surveillance. Such cameras are found fairly frequently in the public, and they record the actions of people. However, in many states, it is illegal to record audio and the conversations people have largely due to the Federal Electronic Communications Privacy ACT of 1986 (Pepper, 2005). The law pertains to actions, not to thoughts. However, the amassing of big data effectively makes all thoughts transparent, and is a privacy violation in the "debate…over the tradeoffs… between national security and civil liberty" (Byman and Wittes, 2014, p. 127).

The typical counterargument posed in the face of issues of privacy related to big data is that storing email and phone conversations for the majority of Americans is a necessary evil to prevent acts of terrorism (Toxen, 2014, p. 51). From a dispassionate perspective, it is apparent how such monitoring could possibly alert the proper authorities of acts of terror before they happen, and might even be able to help prevent them. Still, amassing big data is effectively treating all people, including hard working Americans, like criminals and terrorists. Moreover, it is very convincing that if what the NSA was doing was truly for the benefit of Americans, they would have simply explained this process to the American people, in much the same way they bolstered airport security after the attacks on the World Trade Center. It was dutifully explained to people that because of the attacks security measures were going to be heightened, which would affect everyone attempting to board and airplane. However, there was no massive announcement of the storing and potential analysis of every click an individual makes on an the internet, email he or she sends, or telephone call he or she makes. The reason that such an announcement was not made is because people would have more than likely protested such a fact. Additionally, such an announcement might have also potentially deterred people from utilizing these technological means as the preferred method of communication, which would have further hampered the electronic monitoring process. And most eminently, perhaps, it is conceivable that government officials were aware that such monitoring of intellectual property -- the thoughts and ideas that people communicated to one another -- was a violation of privacy, and they wanted to hide the fact that they were routinely making such a violation.