Question 1:
Do the increased surveillance power and capability of the US government present an ethical dilemma? Explain your answer.
Question 2:
Apply an ethical analysis of the issue of US government’s use of the communications data to fight terrorism.
Question 3:
What are the ethical, social, and political issues raised by the US government creating massive database to collect the calling data of millions of Americans?
Answer 1, 2 and 3
Definitely, the increased surveillance power and capability of the US government present an ethical dilemma. The dilemma is caused because on one hand the privacy of millions of Americans is at stake at one the other hand collecting this calling data is important for national security.
Ethically it is not right to interfere in someone’s personal life and from that perspective the privacy law has been broken, but we have to also look at the intention behind the entire exercise. It is also the responsibility of the government to protect innocent Americans from the terrorist attacks. The rules around implementation of the way data has to be collected have to be made stringent so that the objective could be met without actually going through the details of the conversation. Intelligent mechanism has to be formed so that authorities can reach the suspects quickly.
Question 4:
What is the responsibility of business such as AT&T or Verizon in this matter? What are the ethical, social, and political issues raised by a business such as Phone Company working with the government in this fashion?
Answer 4
The phone companies have to build in internal layer of data security so that the calls data collected is used only by the authorities and the data is not misused by any third parties.
The responsibility of the phone company is to strike a balance between customer privacy and adhere to the government laws. Companies must build in technical solutions to assist the