PRIVACY CONCERN IN AMERICA

Media and Technology Privacy Concern in America

Media and Technology Privacy Concern in America

Introduction

The emergence of new media technologies has initiated debates around what potentially may be one of the most important issues impacting internet use in the 21stcentury in the United States of America. The issue at hand can be understood as the individual privacy concerns among internet users and the extent to which the U.S. government should regulate the internet's usage. The government's objective is to provide privacy protection to citizens while ensuring that the internet be a safe and secure environment and workplace (Dinev et al, 2006). An internet environment secure from threats such as fraud, crime, and terrorism can be achieved through government surveillance of internet usage. New media technologies have changed the landscape of information-sharing online and the emergence of these tools has created tension between user privacy concerns and security needs with respect to the use of the internet, wireless technologies, and digital media.

Discussion

The U.S. citizen's right to privacy is debatable in terms of legality. The current legal system does not have provisions that explicitly account for a U.S. citizen's right to privacy. Legally, the government can acquire information, statistics, and user data from internet usage. That notion is a potential area for concern. This leads to a questioning of whether or not there is protection for U.S. citizen privacy as an opposing viewpoint could be the perception that privacy results from the government's decision to not acquire personal information (Dinev et al, 2006).

In May 2010, files from the Afghanistan war were published on WikiLeaks (Spier, 2011). These documents included video footage of military engagements in the country and were highly confidential. The U.S. government became highly enraged at the release of these documents because video footage was received as ...