The use of Reason and reasonable argumentation, the reclaiming of the idea of Progress and the struggle against dogma. In this post-modern world, reinventing Enlightenment is of the utmost importance.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Dangers of web-journals



There’s a growing debate in the United States and other Western countries about privacy and privacy rights. Basically, this has to do with the so called war on terror. Western governments say that our e-mails, our phone conversations and so on, could/should be under scrutiny. They claim that’s the best way to fight terrorists. Security agencies could/should, be allowed to eavesdrop on our personal lives.

This is a powerful argument, although a fallacious one. It reads pretty much like this: if you don’t have anything to hide, then you shouldn’t mind that we listen to your conversations and read your mail.

It’s a fallacious argument because everyone has something to hide, including governments. If anything else, one might be a political opponent of the government and one might not be pleased if one’s political strategies are under scrutiny from the very same government.

The problem is that neo-cons will resort to another deadly argument: people, namely bloguers and other web surfers, just can’t wait to tell the world about themselves and their lives. They literally put themselves on display before a live audience. Now this has several dangers, as you can read here.

But the greatest danger is that our right to privacy will one day end.

2 Comments:

Blogger Arrebenta said...

"But the greatest danger is that our right to privacy will one day end."

Este acordou agora... :-\

5:37 PM

 
Blogger Vega said...

Obrigada pelo "abre olhos"... De qualquer maneira, acho que o meu instinto de defesa me tem salvaguardado de expor um ou outro detalhe mais pessoal. No entanto, nunca se sabe até que ponto ele é eficaz... Às vezes esqueço-me de que não vivemos no mundo cor-de-rosa em que gosto de me imaginar.
Porque é que não somos todos honestos?! Seria tudo tão simples...

6:54 PM

 

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