Privacy in the Digital Age

 I have been aware for a long time of the issues of privacy online and how we are never truly safe from government surveillance. While I did not find anything in the TED talks surprising I do think they are all important issues to address. I do nothing on the internet that could cause me harm in the future because I understand once something is out there you can never take it back. It's one thing to give information to a website like your email or phone number, but like the videos talk about there are much larger problems when companies take information you do not give them. 

Any one of these issues could affect anyone you know, but the one that certainly affects everyone is the fact that every message or call you send or receive can be tracked. In the video, the speaker says Apple phones are more secure than others because they are harder to tap, but that does not mean impossible. It means if the Chinese government or our own government wants to they will hear every conversation you ever have. Even with an iPhone, Siri is always listening (see attached article). The ability for your phone to passively listen to every conversation you have can supposedly be turned off, but I think if you mention multiple times in a week you need new shoes you will receive ads on every type of social media you use. Companies can say this is just targeted ads and that they aren't really eavesdropping on you, and the reason they can get away with it is because the government is also listening. 

The government should mandate all technology companies to ban listening technology without it being manually activated, but like I said earlier they cannot do that because they use the same technologies. What they can do is try harder to create a national type of security that prevents foreign governments from also spying on us. Each government around the world tries to spy on each other as briefly touched on in the video about government surveillance. This leads to other countries constantly keeping tabs on one another with all the information they can get their hands on. As citizens, we often are caught in the crossfire of this spying as foreign governments might harvest our information as it is more readily available than American secrets heavily encrypted with the best technology. 

One method of protection that can be used is a VPN or virtual private network as it can display a different IP address from your real location and even display you in another country. They also can cause a strain

on your connection and costs money for a subscription, which is why I as a broke college student no longer use one after my free trial. This kind of technology can protect you from hackers trying to steal your information and could in theory do the same for government surveillance. Ultimately the best way to protect yourself is to make sure you never do anything stupid on the internet and never give unnecessary information out for free. 

The Eight Values of Free Expression

 I believe all eight of the values of free expression are important but the one I care about most is easily Individual Self-Fulfillment because that is how I live my life. I believe the point of life is to be fulfilled, and I happen to believe that my pursuit of fulfillment in my spiritual and personal life will lead to my happiness. For these reasons, I believe that self-fulfillment is easily the most important of the eight 
values. It is also called self-actualization and is often meant to be the process of unending self-improvement. This idea means constantly working on yourself in all aspects of life and if that isn't the most important freedom I don't know what could be. I think our most important freedoms are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and that's why this is the most important value as it encompasses that saying. 

For the last few months, all I have seen on TV, YouTube, and even Instagram sometimes is political ad campaigns. It's now impossible to watch a football game without seeing at least 12 ads on either side of the aisle as we are so close to the election. With the election permeating into every other aspect of life, we need to look at Participation in Self-Government particularly because everyone needs to have an idea of who they are voting for and why. I myself am guilty of not being well informed enough, but I knew enough to confidently vote in this election. The biggest issue with self-government is that it is not as easy as some of these other values to express, because it requires significant amounts of knowledge to speak on most accurately. Whereas it's easier to explain what makes you happy and how you want to improve in your life. 

During this time however, we also have to pay attention to the value of Protecting Dissent because many people can become hateful during election season, which is unproductive and unnecessary. America has gotten much worse about this over time because we have made it acceptable to hate people for differing views. We can even see this in the two candidates we are voting for this fall, but 50 years ago there was much more respect and discipline even between political rivals. They might have thought the other was the worst person in the entire world but they certainly never voiced it. 

Lastly, we need to Promote Tolerance during an election year because many movements in America promote tolerance and acceptance until you disagree with them. That then makes you a bigot who hates freedom and they try to stop you from expressing your ideas. In trying to advocate for more freedom Americans have reduced freedom of speech because anything you say in 2024 can and will be held against you. I believe that is a very dangerous way for society to function because things could come out of context or somebody could say something they don't really mean. Either way, the important thing is that America needs to remind itself that we are the land of the free and that includes everything a person could possibly say to upset your feelings. 

What I Learned About The Supreme Court

One of the most interesting things I learned about the Supreme Court is that they get over 7,000 cases a year, but they only take about a hundred. I also learned that lawyers have 30 minutes to explain their case to the Supreme Court Judges while the judges ask questions. 

The most important takeaway I got was that the Supreme Court gets its power from the trust of the American people. It is the most powerful court in the world and needs the support of the people to effectively use that power. By handling the case of Roe v. Wade they recently gave state governments the power to decide what they want to do about abortion. This gives much-needed autonomy to each state and helps continue the cultural diversity of each state across the country. Some cultures are better than others like the South, but the Supreme Court has nothing to do with that. 

What was surprising about the video was the fact that opinions written by the Justices can be 80 pages or longer in a case of split decision. The revisions and adjustments can last months on a project like this and it is a very ardous process. 

I think the video helped me realize more that the Supreme Court Justices are people and not just cogs in the overcomplicated machine or government. My former understanding of the Supreme Court is that President's simply appointed Justices of their party they liked and made them vote how they wanted on issues, and while this is probably true to some extent I think the Justices genuinely care about correctly interpreting the law of our great nation. 

 My Top 5 Sources of News

1. Instagram: 

Unfortunately, I spend so much time on Instagram that it is my most common source of news. Most of the news I care about is sports-related and I follow many different sports accounts on Instagram so I find out whatever I want to know quickly each day just by opening the app. Instagram is very efficient for showing you what you want to know because of its algorithm. If you pay attention to the posts of an account regularly they will pop up first when you open the app, so by always looking at the same sports account they keep me updated on news I'm interested in. 

2. ESPN:  

I watch a lot of NBA and NFL along with College football, and ESPN is the best way to keep up with players and teams. I also use it to figure out my fantasy football lineups when a player's status is questionable. ESPN has articles about everything sports and is the most reliable sports media platform. ESPN constantly has new articles about different players and teams and it makes it very easy to keep up with what's going on in sports.  

3. YouTube: 

YouTube is good because videos allow a more in-depth understanding of any subject. YouTube is good for every kind of news political or sports that I would want more information about. News can also come in the form of sports highlights which show you what happened in a team's last game. This information can help you better understand how a team might look for the rest of a season and as someone who follows sports, this news is important to me. You can also find any form of political news on YouTube that you want. YouTube is the best platform for going in-depth on news in my opinion. 

4. Family:

I am very close with my family but do not follow current events as closely as they do. So if something happens in the news I will usually hear about it from them first. It will either be my mother or grandmother who tells me first because they are the most focused on current events. They typically assume I have heard this news as they have and want to talk about it. So when I do not know what they are talking about they fill me in on the recent news I have missed, and that is why my family is a good source of news. 

5. Fox News:   

I very rarely watch the news, but if I do it is with my grandparents when I visit them. I learn a lot when I watch the news, so even though it is not often I would say Fox News is a reliable source of news for me. Everyone in my family votes conservative so naturally, they watch conservative news. When I was a younger kid I didn't see why the two political parties hate each other so much, but as time has passed and the left has gone further off the deep end it makes more sense to me.