In cold truth, Citizenfour depicts our government and the true reality of the world we live in. Edward Snowden was a whistleblower to the United States. What people may assume about his fate can only show how America refuses to accept a true hero. By isolating out of the country goes to show that one man will suffer for the sake of the rest of his nation. The examination of privacy and contemporary surveillance culture is what America is sacrificing for national security at the expense of terroristic threats. I think that is the true debate at stake.
It’s dangerous for the government to have that kind of control on their constituents. To tap in, to configure their way out, is just an overreach when there are so many other things to worry about in the United States and let alone the world.
Snowden makes a comment on how the only way to write history is to go against the law and by his way of releasing these classified information is his way of writing history. The rights that we are allowed are not granted by governments but are inherent to our nature.
The twenty-nine year old NSA whistleblower was a false condemnation. While some call him a traitor, he did what was best for himself and his opinions. But from what I believe, I think that he came out with information that not a lot of Americans bother to care about. There is a quote from Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker who believes that Snowden should have gone to prison. He says that “Snowden wasn’t blowing the whistle on anything illegal; he was exposing something that failed to meet his own standards of propriety.”
Like Snowden, the only way to make history is to go against the law. There are privileges that we overlook being citizens of America. We feel as if we are entitled to everything. The big house, green lawn, white picket fence that encloses us in is what America likes to define as the perfect life. But there are millions of other people who want to destroy that dream. There are terrorists who think that we do not deserve these liberties and whether or not their beliefs are justified, their concerns are better left on their home turf.
The real question is how do we withstand these threats and terrors to restrain from hurting more American lives? While I don’t think wire tapping into phone calls or looking at past histories on web browsers is that big of a deal, I also think there is a better way to screen what is coming in and out in communication. American government did what it needed to do to refrain another 9/11 attack to happen again.
The abuse of the privileges of technology is already dramatized by the everyday adolescent, and the government has no business in spending millions of American money to fund them. There are other things that America can do to prevent terrorist from happening, alongside the millions of dollars we’re using to send troops across the ocean.
What Snowden did, releasing all the pivotal information of the NSA is his own business. I am indifferent to the accusations of Snowden but I am also do not agree with the way America is handling his situation. It’s people like Snowden that America needs to hold on to to use as tools to fight against terrorism. Edward Snowden is in his own way a hero but not a lot of Americans really care about those sorts of things.
It’s important that there are governments that can regulate our security because citizens are almost incapable to protect themselves from it. The average Joe would not be able to know that the subway he’s in has a bomb ticking away waiting to explode with someone texting “alrighty fire!” We are too little for that kind of information. People have jobs to clean bathrooms, jobs to teach, and America just added another one: big data regulation. It’s important for us to understand that these are the freedoms that we need to accept and security in this day in age is important considering what has been going on around us.
For America to employ these new regulations is a good thing. By tapping in on big data is a big step and an unnecessary one that needs more thought on how to regulate it without infringing American privacy. What is unconstitutional is the idea that Net Neutrality is at stake.
We live in a capitalistic world and if companies want to pay more to get more, than let them do that to. If we were to put an end to equality on the internet, I think that’s almost communistic. Water and food are necessities, clothes are essential, but whether or not you drive a car or fly on a private jet is the luxury that most people need to choose. Thus net neutrality goes against corporate America and how our capitalistic ideals work.
I think when websites are blocked due to larger corporations singling them out can cause a great problem. That is unfair business and creates a flaw in the system. The first proposal made by Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler would have allowed slow lanes which was giving cable companies the right to de-prioritize the speed of some Web sites in favor of others. It shouldn’t be a dramatic change but one that does initiate more use capital.
I like to look at it like it is a mom and pop shop or a chain restaurant. The ones that are well-known to others will of course be more successful with the time and effort put into making the business a success and the less popular business is only popular in the eyes of those it attracts. There are plenty of other questions that we’d all like to tap into but the everlasting debate will come to a close eventually and the world will see the repercussions of these discussions years from now and we will all eventually recover.
The internet is fairly new and like all new inventions come pros and cons and arguments galore. It will evolve and change and new additions will be added, old traditions will cease and the world will keep cycling. It’s like comparing AT&T to T-Mobile. The world knows AT&T to have better more reliable service and that T-Mobile provides sufficient if not mediocre cellphone service. But the fact is that people will pay for the luxury they want. It’s like I said before, it’s almost communistic to provide internet at one pace when there are people willing to pay for it.
I don’t see what the big fuss is all about. We all still have to pay for text books and still need to pay for movies when we go into the movie theater. The internet is cheating ground for anyone who wants to bypass that. There are regulations on whether or not the quality of what communication companies offer are things that we should pay for. It’s important to recognize that we live in a democracy that stands on freedom and equality within morals and ethics. We are all treated equal but when equality is infringed on whether or not no one ever has to pay for electricity or even goes as far as never having to pay for groceries that causes a problem. There was never a museum of great that ran for free. The Louvre has a fare, the Art Institute of Chicago charges admission, so why should internet succumb to the idea of free ground.
We are not dividing roads at which the poor drive on one side and the rich on the other, we are simply saying that not every one can be driving a beaten up old car from the 70s that needs an oil change every two weeks.The internet is not a public utility. It’s not as essential as utility although it is necessary for contemporary life, there are other ways of getting around that. The internet is on the brink of getting rid of important factors of communication.
The future of television is hanging on a cliff because of the internet. It’s important to see that people will turn to their internet providers for faster television services. By allowing just one speed on the internet, television companies can face a slow ride into extinction.
To put it into comparison, Comcast is a good representation of what television is now and Netflix represents what television is becoming. We are in the middle of what the world will eventually be and what kind of country we want to live in.
While the world may be dependent on the internet, there are other forms of communication that still need to be recognized. The idea of privacy on the internet and the idea of having everyone be exposed to the information granted, are debates that will last a long time. Picking a side is hard when you’re able to see both views.
