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Privacy

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Privacy

‘The Limits of Privacy’ and ‘The Case for privacy’ are written by Amitai Etzioni and David D. Friedman respectively. Both of them have opposite views about privacy, which Etzioni states that less privacy is good for us and Friedman claims that more privacy makes the world a better place. In this paper, I will argue that Etzioni’s argument fails because privacy is really important for us to protect ourselves. I am going to explain in detail based on three different points in the next three paragraphs.

First, in ‘The Limits of Privacy’, Etzioni argues that privacy is not important as many other goods. Based on his argument, he claims that “there are numerous values that trump or take precedence over privacy” (p.254) such as safety. However, I totally disagree his standpoint. Although safety also considers as a part of importance, it does not mean that safety can take priority over privacy consideration. Privacy does have significance effect for us to protect ourselves. Some people may think that it is worth to sacrifice their individual privacy in order to get freedom for safety. Once you give up your own privacy and allow anyone like governments to access to your information freely, your information is disclosed and you cannot get them back anymore. For example, after 9/11 attack in the United States, a lot of new measures about surveillance are introduced. The government can have authorities to wiretap, record or trace orders for email made by all Americans. These security actions do violate the nature of privacy. Airport security regulations also are enhanced after the 2001 attack, such as using X-ray to scan the whole body of a person even the sensitive parts of male or female. I think this act is a serious invasion of privacy and lead me to consider whether these new measures are introduced because of the safety reason only. Other countries like

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