Some people believe that governments should have access to people’s call records and messages to prevent various threats and for safety reasons. On the other hand, others believe that this information should only be available with permission. In this essay, I will discuss both points of view and state my opinion.
Many crises the country and government face breed fear and uneasiness among the citizens. Technology has been advancing at immeasurable speeds and it is being taken advantage of by people with unorthodox intentions which has caused crime rates to be higher than ever. One of many examples is how robbers could communicate with eachother through their cellular devices and coordinate a robbery. If their devices were under surveillance, authorities could act in advance. Another example are groupchats which are used to distribute illegal substances. They would cease to exist under the eyes of the government and many other crimes could be prevented.
What about the innocent citizens who are being monitored? Personally, I would not appreciate my personal messages or calls to be available for others to see. Moreover, keeping track of a whole population worth of call logs and messages is unrealistic. Mountains of money would have to be spent to keep track of this data and protect it. The same money could be used for other methods to prevent crime.
Overall, I believe that keeping every single phone under 24/7 supervision is simply wishful thinking. A more realistic approach would be for the government to only view call records or messages of suspicious individuals. This means that the privacy of innocent individuals is conserved.