Invasion of Privacy
Invasion of PrivacyBy: Spydey
E-mail: [email protected]
Invasion of Privacy Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. - U.S Constitution, First Amendment The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. - U.S. Constitution, Fourth Amendment - It's two o'clock on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon and your sleeping in your dorm room. The ringing of the telephone awakens you. You drudgingly get out of bed and pick up the phone and say, "Hello!" The voice on the other end says, "Hi. This is Robert from the Stony Brook Intranet Monitoring Board and we have noticed that there has been illegal usage of university bandwidth from your computer." You are startled and you ask, "What are you talking about? I have no idea, what you are talking about?" The voice responds, "We have been monitoring the university network and we have noticed that so-and-so from Hand College in room 417A has been receiving or downloading mp3s and other files from your computer." Surprised, you answer, "Really? I didn't even know." The voice on the other end responds, "Please take off any and all illegal information or data that you may have up on the network or else we will have to take action." Unsure about what he means, you say, "Ok. I'll do it right away." You quickly hang up and turn off your computer. You think to yourself, have they been monitoring everything I've been doing on my computer? This is a true story that occurs on the campuses of many colleges and universities around the country. The tale brings up a controversial debate on the rights of citizens as well as the rights of students. The major question, which is brought to attention, is that do educational institutions have the right to monitor what goes on in the school's network or is it an invasion of privacy to monitor the students? We live in a time, which we call the Information Age. Our society is evolving and progressing striving to obtain any and all information that exists in the world. The advances in the telecommunication technology have made it faster and easier to communicate and transmit information. During our march toward...
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