I spy; Doesn't Everyone?

" There was a time when unearthing someone's private thoughts and deeds required sliding a hand beneath a mattress, fishing out a diary and hurriedly skimming its pages. The process was tactile, delibarateand fraught with anxiety: Will I be caught? Is this ethical? What will it do to my relationship? But digital technology has made uncovering secrets such a painless, antiseptic process that that boundary delineating what is permissible in a relationship appears to be shifting."

"In interviews and on blogs across the Web, people report that they snoop and spy on others--friends, family, colleagues--encumbered by anxiety or guilt."

These two quotes come from The New York Times article titled I spy; Doesn't everyone? written by Stephanie Rosenbloom. This article explores how we are all using the ever so quickly developing online data sources to our advantage. By having peoples personal information at our finger tips, we are all finding it that much easier to justify taking away some elses right to privacy in order to satisfy a desire to settle our own insecurities. Snooping though computers and checking personal websits such as myspace and facebook is an act that is becoming increasingly popular today. People are driven by suspicion and with the amount of information that the internet provides us with, makes it that much harder to walk away and not snoop. When you know that you hold the ability to satisty your own curiosity within minutes, it is often times hard to keep in mind the right to privacy that others, even those who you are in a relationship, deserve. Although we are all making a concious choice to put our own information onto the internet, we do not expect that anyone can gain full access to our personal information. Many of the most popular websites that are created to create a community and a way to meet other people are serving as stepping stones to privacy invasion and diminished rights to privacy. Updated technology and easy internet access puts us in a position to test ourselves. Can we be faced with a mountain of information that could answer all of our questions or can we walk away and respect some elses right to privacy. Another aspect that arises when considering spying, is "applied situational ethics" . This idea brought up by Jan Goldman is exactly what many of us are using today. When you feel as though your need for information is greater than anothers right to privacy we use applied situational ethics. Maybe it is okay for parents to gain access to their childrens internet activities, because they are parents and their applied situational ethics is justified, because after all they are just protecting their children aren't they? While none of us want the governernment or the Umass police gaining access to our information, we find it okay to access the information of others. The mountain of information that exists on the internet surrounding just about every person in this country and others is causing people to disregard the rights of others in order to satisfy their own person needs, and this is not right.