Miguel Lozoya Burciaga

No Country for Old Private Men

I dont think privacy has a place in the direction we as a civilization are heading.
The direction is being made clear by our use of technology, the internet and computers
bring about a new way of thinking about privacy and challenge its importance in modern
life. My thoughts were not always this way. My understanding of privacy was based on
social norms and my personal experiences. It wasnt until I reflected on the role that
privacy played in my day to day life and its role on others that helped me define it as
unnecessary.
Growing up, I didnt value privacy as much as I do today, nor did I actively seek
to protect my privacy and that of others. I was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco. We arrived
in the United States when I was very young and lived in California with an immigrant
visa. My family of five started out with very little, we have not lived in a home that we
own to this day. Economic limitations made it so we usually lived in small apartments,
this meant sharing two or fewer rooms and almost always sharing a single bathroom.
One bathroom means that there is usually more than one person occupying the
space at a time. If someone was showering, it didnt mean they had control of the
bathroom. Mornings created a constant traffic in and out of the bathroom and if you
were committed to taking a shower before school, you needed to accept that there
would be others occupying the bathroom alongside you. Of course this created a very
open definition of privacy. Having a single television and a single family computer
reinforced the lack of privacy.
During those early years, my privacy or lack of it did not hinder my ability to do
as I wanted. There was little knowledge that one member of the family knew that
another did not, living so closely meant almost everything was out in the open. There
were few, if any, hiding places to store private information. It meant that anything you
were willing to do had best be safe to do in front of the rest of the family. Perhaps

because of this, I didnt practice things too bizarre nor did I experiment in overly risky
behaviour. It wasnt until I gained knowledge of my history that privacy started being an
issue and my definition of privacy broadened outside my own home.
My parents felt the dangers in Mexico growing and wanted to find a safer place
to live. They tried desperately to naturalize us, but after many failed attempts the visas
expired and my parents decided to keep the family in the United States. When I figured
out my legal status, I was told to keep it a secret. Knowledge of my status could have
lead to difficulties such as the deportation of my family in the worst of cases. If not
deportation, I feared social exclusion at school among those around me. Thus, privacy
of information became relevant to me, the knowledge of my legal status could not be
shared openly.
Though this is a privacy paper is based on my own thoughts of privacy, I am a
part of a society that determines and is determined by the collaboration of personal
beliefs. Nowadays, many Americans believe that we are losing our rights to privacy.
Such rights are upheld socially in western societies but are also hinted at by our
sovereign laws. The United States Bill of Rights establishes several amendments to the
constitution that reflect how I interpret privacy.
The first amendment establishes freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or of
the press; the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the
Government for a redress of grievances. This protects private space such as that
created when a group is protesting. The third amendment establishes that no soldier, in
time of war or peace may be quartered in any house, without consent of the owner. The
fourth amendment establishes the right of the people to be secure in their persons,
houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. These two
amendments reflect what is most commonly accepted as privacy, the right to be secure
in your person, home, papers, and effects. This is all well accepted by Americans and is
reflected in my own views.

What Ive described so far are two types takes on privacy: one that can be
related with personal space and the other concerning private knowledge/information.
The two have a common core but their implications on modern life are very distinct and
are a cause for much controversy. That of knowledge has become a catalyst of
discussion.
Many Americans today feel that we are losing our rights to private knowledge and
even space. New technology makes it very easy for people to acquire personal
information. This is widely seen as malicious, but the groups of people that do it are not
only underground groups trying to steal identities or money. Large companies and
government groups are culprits of this as well. Social media sites are thought to restrict
your information to only you and those you want to know it, but this is far from the truth.
Once you put information up on a website, it is out there for anyone to see. This
information is often used by retailers to better target their consumer groups. In some
cases, personal information is thought to be used by the government to protect against
possible threats.
A growing issue in the United States is whether groups like the National Security
Agency , NSA, or Federal Bureau of Investigations, FBI, have the right to access
personal information. The American Civil Liberties Union describes article 215 of the
patriot act as follows:
Section 215 allows the FBI to order any person or entity to turn over "any tangible
things," so long as the FBI "specif[ies]" that the order is "for an authorized investigation . . . to
protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities."

This has been a catalyst of debate since it was first passed after the acts performed on
September 11th 2001. They specify that it is meant to protect against international
terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities, but what many fear is that those in power
can use this limits our privacy now and can be used as a precedent to further limit

privacy in the future. Though this may be true, the real implications are the ethics
behind such actions. Is invasion of privacy ethical if it is for the greater good?
According to the class definition of ethics, a person defines his or her own ethical
system by deciding what is the "right" thing to do when faced with a choice that challenges his
or her values. You are the only person who can determine whether or not your individual actions
are ethical. So the ethical question is based on what I value most, and this must be

asked by every individual who is willing to decide on this issue. I have to ask myself if I
value my personal information being kept secret more than I value government groups
keeping its countrys citizens safe. I hold my safety and the safety of those around me
above keeping information private. Because of this I am for government to have access
to personal information, as scary as this can be for some, there are benefits to full
disclosure.
Just as I learned that having full disclosure within my family lead to a shared
responsibility and strong cohesion between my family members, I believe that full
disclosure among citizens is vital in having an understanding and cooperating
civilization. When issues are brought out in the open, we all have the opportunity to
learn the best solution. This solution is not reached quickly, most of the time the problem
with full disclosure are the immediate risks such as facing deportation in my example
mentioned earlier. But what I learned from this was that being open about in regards to
people in america facing deportation was that there were options beyond deportation.
When we are open about our private lives we learn that we are not all that different. We
learn that sharing our opinions and experiences is not always accepted but is necessary
to eventually reach the acceptance or see problems in ourselves.
I dont see true value in privacy beyond the immediate avoidance of something
we believe will occur once your privacy is invaded. This includes spatial privacy as well
as that which concerns privacy of knowledge. We are as much a part of this planet as it
is a part of us, we are a much a member of society as society is a member of ourselves.

The sooner we can learn to put ourselves in eachothers shoes, the sooner we can bring
an end to injustices and commence an era of coexistence. This will only come about if
we let go of the value we give to ownership.
As we advance as a society, we must advance our way of thinking. Technology
makes it more and more difficult to keep things private, the internet and computers are
creating a more connected world. Instead of fighting it, we should embrace it by
redefining our value on privacy. The immediate drawback from being open in regard to
private space and information are just a necessary bump in the road to a better way of
living.