Everything is permanent; whether that is a tattoo your draw on your body with ink or a picture you post on Instagram, nothing goes away. In the Ted talk "Your Online Life, Permanent as a Tattoo" by Juan Enriquez, he explained what an electronic tattoo is. An electronic tattoo is when somebody consciously chooses to join any social media platform, such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or Snapchat. It's the choice to become immoral; electronic tattoos will live far longer than any of us because even when we pass, the history we leave on social media remains. Today's technology has become so advanced that anybody, anywhere, can take a picture of you, download your name, and get all your records before even speaking a word to you; that's scary! As a college student, safety is always on my parent's minds; whether I am on campus or off campus with my friends, making sure I am safe is always a priority; however, with today's technology, that makes it extremely difficult. The fact that the government can listen in on personal doctors' calls with loved ones or calls with friends not only becomes an invasion of one's privacy but also causes people we don't even know to make prior judgments about us as individuals without getting to know us.
Our phones and the variety of networks we use to carry out our calls have been wired for surveillance before we, as citizens, could even purchase them. This means that when you use your phone to make a phone call, somebody, whether that be our government, a different government, a foreign intelligence service, a hacker, a criminal, a stalker, or anybody who knows how to break into a surveillance system could be listening to your conversation. Due to the danger this puts American citizens in, the government needs to take charge.
In the video "How Revenge Porn Turns Lives Upside Down," Dairteh Chisolm talks about her invasion of privacy story and how she not only spent thousands of dollars and numerous months fighting for justice but how the US government did nothing to help her. It's crazy to me that this was even a case; those pictures should have immediately been taken down, and she should have been instantly helped, but our government has no laws protecting either men or women against these types of offenses. Although the government has 1 federal bill pending that would protect victims and punish perpetrators in these types of scenarios, in order to protect individual privacy, the government needs to first educate citizens on the harm these social media platforms are causing. Still, they need to pass more laws that ensure both privacy and protection from invasions of privacy. Although the government wants to be involved in our lives as a way to "protect" one another, they need to realize when it comes to protection, it's give and take. You need to give each individual the privacy they deserve, even if that makes their job harder when it comes to stopping invaders and criminals.
Not only can the government take action to protect us from possible invasions of privacy, but we can take action too. Companies such as Apple, WhatsApp, and other tech companies have started encrypting their platforms to block the government and other sources from being able to see what you are doing. Platforms such as Facetime, IMessage, and WhatsApp, which is now owned by Facebook, are extremely hard to wiretap, making them three of the safest and most secure platforms to use without being watched. Although the government is not happy with the fact that they do not have access past these encryptions; what they don't realize is that when you open the door for the government to see what you are doing, you are also opening a backdoor through which you have no control in who is going to walk through. It is extremely important that we as citizens push for others to use these encrypted tools, not because they are easy, but because they are a way for us to protect ourselves and our privacy.
According to Andy's theory, "in the future, everybody will be world-famous for fifteen minutes," however, according to Juan Enriquez, "in the future, you can only be anonymous for fifteen minutes."
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