Is anything private anymore?

If you see it from the headlines, it seems that we don’t have any privacy and when we think that we have, and then we don’t anymore. Several breaches of security have occurred in various companies that the hackers have taken the personal information of millions of citizens and even the tightest security does not deter these hackers. Even when we think that our information is safe with the security locket that you see on the right hand corner on secured sites, it sometimes get hacked. This is evitable and predictable as more and more people are doing stuff on line and the websites need more information about you. But what about when we voluntarily give out information on the social media? Are we not then responsible to share our private lives out in the public? Some teens and adults purposely supply all the information in the social media and when that information gets out then they cry about privacy concerns. And we have also street views from Google® where we can see the house if we know the address and all the assorted things around it and also snoop on our neighbors. And it goes on and on that it seems like nothing in this world is private anymore even if we want to since our life have become so computerized and we have become so fame hungry that nothing seems personal and private to us anymore. So if we feel that most of our privacy has been taken away by technology than the rest of it we are prepared to give away on social media and other outlets without thinking about the consequences.

Unfair Comparison-2

Let us be realistic about what sample of data we are comparing as there is a loopsided comparison between apple and oranges. How can you compare a country of more than 300 million people with countries which are maybe hardly 20 million or less and then expect that the U.S. should have the same kind of infrastructure and living standards and all the assortment of indexes that define which is the best places to live? And happiness is a relative subject which can mean different things to different people. Despite being behind some countries on the index of livability, most of the people are happy enough to live and raise their families here. And for better or for worse, the U.S. is the first choice for most of the immigrants despite its troubles because it is here that people of different nationalities thrive and try to achieve something for their future generations. And the U.S. is the only country which takes more immigrants than other countries and try to assimilate them as much as possible and in the course of that if it is not successful that is not because it is not trying but the sheer number of new comers with different back grounds have different needs which takes time to adjust and reallocate resources so that they may be served better. And it all costs money, which is constantly increasing as some groups fall through the cracks. I wonder if this same situation exists in other so called "HAPPY" countries and how will they be able to cope with this influx and how well then their "HAPPINESS" level suffer.

Unfair Comparison

This is the one I am writing about the comparisons that all the surveys do with what is the best country, health care, happiness index, living conditions, student competitiveness and all the others that come in every now and then. Now without going into much detail, I have a problem with all these surveys. As I have said before, these comparisons are unfair to me because America is country comprising of fifty states and it is several times bigger than the countries surveyed. Furthermore the U.S. is a multicultural society with low taxes and a tradition of resisting government programs and interference. And the fact is that even if the U.S. is a superpower, it does not mean it can be number one in everything. Although it tries to be on top but the sheer population of the U.S. and the vastness of it makes it very difficult to have a lifestyle as comparable to the top level countries of the world surveyed. Our students struggle to stay in school not because we cannot help them but because there are so many and have so many myriad problems with variable background that I believe the same would happen if they were in Sweden, Norway, Singapore or New Zealand. Then the sheer number of immigrants with diversified background that the U.S. takes every year makes it even harder to integrate in the U.S. society with different needs and cultural and traditional ideals. I don’t know if the surveyors take this into account but the surveys are meaningless without having these sort of comparisons.

Freedom of the press and Government

This is one of the most fundamental rights enshrined in the first amendment to the U.S. constitution. That is why you see the press jealously guarding its freedom and any hint of government interference or snooping is very much frowned upon. And the case of the Justice Department seizing information from Associated Press has created a firestorm in the media and Washington D.C. But only in the U.S. (or some other western countries) this may happen. If you look at the developing countries, journalists get killed or intimidated by the government and the criminals to report only their side of the story and being a journalist is a really dangerous job. In some places, some journalists are paid to be informant of the government and some are asked to publish stories only favorably to a certain party. And don’t believe that all journalists follow ethical standards in dangerous countries as they do have to survive and save their lives and thus self censorship is practiced widely. Journalism is not an easy job and I salute the people who follow this career despite all the risks that it carries. I believe in the Freedom of the press and the government has no right to interfere in its working otherwise we would not really know what is going on clandestinely or otherwise in some shady areas. But here is my dilemma how do you reconcile freedom of the press with national security and how do you define what is national security when you are trying to do your job. Tough decision and that is why I am not in the business of Journalism. I have no idea how to balance this notion of national security and reporting on a story which can help inform public. That is where the role of journalists come into play and hence we need the freedom of the Press.