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Document Details : Title: The Benefits of Being Watched Author(s): OBERG, Andrew Journal: Ethical Perspectives Volume: 21 Issue: 4 Date: 2014 Pages: 513-538 DOI: 10.2143/EP.21.4.3062018 Abstract : The extent of the data mining and surveillance operations being conducted by US intelligence services revealed by Edward Snowden has taken many by surprise. Yet is there real cause for alarm in what we have learned? The present article considers eavesdropping technologies and governmental surveillance, with a special focus on the US National Security Agency’s (NSA) Prism programme, its telephone metadata recording, and similar data mining programmes. The related questions of whether or not we have an obligation to our government, and if so to what extent, and the manner in which probability relates to utility regarding relevant security concerns are also examined. Some of the main objections to surveillance and possible replies to them are considered in light of the programmes highlighted. It is argued that in addition to greater public safety there are some perhaps unexpected benefits for increasing ethical behaviour to ‘being watched’, and that those benefits are derived from the knowledge of possible surveillance more so than they are from any actually occurring surveillance. Moreover, the operation of programmes like Prism should be judged separately from the uses to which such programmes are put. The following is a defence of the tools and the techniques that we now know to be in use. |
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