INFO 102 blog 4

The use of backdoors for surveillance by the government could be a great tool for law enforcement. By being able to secretly access computers and communication devices law enforcement agencies could easily gather evidence and information on criminals and terrorists. If you aren’t a criminal and you have nothing to hide then why would you care if the government can access your computer or gather information about you? Well probably because most people value their privacy. "Senior Bush Administration officials later confirmed that the President's authorization went beyond the surveillance of terrorists and conceded that the program did not comply with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The President, invoking a theory of limitless executive power to disregard the mandates of Congress, has reauthorized this warrantless surveillance more than thirty times, including after the Department of Justice found the program to violate criminal laws, and has indicated that he intends to continue doing so."(eff.org) It is not okay for someone to have access to my private information on my computer without my consent. I don’t care if it’s the government or a law enforcement agency. I generally do trust the government, and I wouldn’t really care that much if they saw what was on my computer, it’s the principle of someone secretly monitoring me and having access to my information without my consent that bothers me. Also, having an infrastructure in place that would allow such easy access to people’s personal information seems like a terrible idea. Just because the government is using it for law enforcement purposes now doesn’t mean it couldn’t eventually be used for something less acceptable, or that someone with less noble purposes could somehow gain access to it. “to think that any government wouldn’t do it to its own citizens for whatever reason would be absurd. There are a lot of horrible routes this could take”(infiltrated.net)

sources:

http://www.eff.org/issues/nsa-spying

http://www.infiltrated.net/?p=91