portfolio Introductory Reflective Essay

Ever since the attacks of 9/11, Americans have been concerned about balancing two needs—the need for security and the need for privacy. But these needs are not always easily balanced, as travelers, who go through full-body scanners or are subjected to racial profiling, discover at airports every day. As an increase in terror threats is met by new surveillance technologies, many Americans worry that our rights to privacy will become less and less respected. Where do you stand on this issue? What do you think is more important in a time of global terrorism, safety or privacy? And is it possible to step up security measures while protecting privacy rights? Drawing on your personal experience and observations, write an essay in which you defend your position on this issue. Make sure you support your position with reasons, explanations, and examples.

Huimin Liang

English 300

Prof.Ziff

02/02/2020

Time Essay One

I seem to feel that state surveillance of a person's privacy is conducive to national security to a certain extent. Think, in the daily surveillance process, once someone find that, there are some information passed by a person is suspected of endangering national security, they can immediately focus on monitoring the personal actions and take relevant measures to resolve the crisis to the greatest extent, thereby maximizing to a certain extent, prevent problems before they occur. But monitoring this act itself has violated citizens' right to privacy. From this perspective, national security was obtained by illegal means.

If there is no National security, we can not enjoy our right to privacy or other civil rights because our safety is difficult to be secured, we might lose our lives or lost someone we love in global terrorism in the future, like 911 tragedy, which is what we don't want to see. We need to be safe to protect the one we love. No one knows when the next tragedy will happen, but tragedy can be prevented by giving up our privacy in some way.

Regarding the harmfulness of terrorism, the psychological deterrent effect on people even exceeds regular warfare, so the security issue is of primary urgency at the moment. The government takes various monitoring, and enforcement measures to this end will naturally pose severe challenges to the traditional free field.

National Security can ensure that we can have a peaceful life. No one wants to live in fear. We don't want to live in a country that faces many terrorisms every day. Only our government can help to stop those terrorists happen. In other words, It is reasonable that they use our privacy because they are protecting us; they are protecting our nation.

National security should be first considered, but National security experts should also value civil liberties and prevent abuse of power. One is the inherent value of freedom; the other is that the arbitrary deprivation of civil liberties may cause some social groups to be dissatisfied with the country because they originally identified this beautiful country based on their loyalty to freedom.