Privacy is something most people take for granted, however, most are unaware that their privacy is jeopardized for security measures. The balance between security and privacy has become a heated issue over the past few years, with security constantly winning over privacy. When I read Daniel Solove’s “Why ‘security’ keeps winning out over privacy”, his argument titled “The War-Powers Argument” truly resonated with me because the outcome is shockingly true!

            The War-Powers argument contemplates the actions taken by the president of the United States, following the tragic incident on September 11th. Subsequently, the bush administration bypassed Fifth Amendment rights in order to “engage in warrantless wiretapping of the phones of Americans”. It is truly a shock that the United States government expects its citizens to abide to the very same laws they chose to disregard. What makes this issue so serious is the fact that the Bush Administration chose to not justify their actions on an argument that it was acting legally under FISA, a surveillance program that was violated during the wiretapping process. That alone proves the government lied to its citizens in order to avoid contradictory and numerous lawsuits. If they could lie about something so serious, what else had they hidden from us? Furthermore, the Bush Administration then argued, “The president had the right to break the law because of the inherent constitutional authority”. If this is true, then the president would have complete control over the country, meaning all other authority groups would be impractical.

            One of the most complex features of our nation is our legal system, and within our legal system is our rule of law. During the American Revolution, we repudiated a monarchy, which established a nation where laws would rule, as oppose to a leader. The war-powers argument eviscerates the rule of law, therefore, how could the president perform such an offensive maneuver on his citizens? This situation resonates, not only with me, but also with a large percentage of the citizens of the United States, in which the rule of law can be ignored with impunity in times of crisis. If the government has the ability to bypass laws set by its very own in response to crisis, then they could easily disguise countless issues as “a solution to a crisis”, and act without engaging in the painstaking judicial system. It is important that we ensure our government is acting under the same rules as us, and implicating various privacy-destroying security measures only with a permit obtained from court. 



 
Last week, I was lucky enough to read Nadine Gordimer's story "Once upon a Time", which is hardly the fairytale you would expect it to be. The story is written in the mindset of fear, and highlights how fear can alter a persons justification for the actions they take to feel safe again. The story is very easy to understand, but the background events are a little more challenging to uncover. The story is based in the 1990s when whites had superiority over the non-whites, and roughly at the same time Nelson Mandala rose to power. The main literary element witnessed throughout the read is irony. The story is based on a family, one which lives "happily ever after", and how they slowly begin to imprison themselves in their own home; constantly overlooking their own happiness for the unnecessary desire of the safety of their family. While reading the story, I tried to visualize myself as a member of the family, predict the outcome of all these safety measures taken by the family and identify all the discriminative actions the family took, whether they knew it or not. 

 
Is Stephen Fry overreacting to the situation in Russia?

 At first I thought that he was overreacting by comparing the issues occurring in Russia to those of Hitlers Germany, however, as i continued to read the article, the similarities between the two are endless. Comparing anything to Hitlers Germany can be seen absurd by most due to the harshness and profoundness of Germany at that time. When he relates how the Germans treated the Jews, to how Russia is treating athletes who will be competing in the 2014 Olympics, the theme of discrimination is evident. The hatred toward those that are different is the main similarity, as well as the undescribable reasoning for those actions.