Would You Choose To Sacrifice Privacy For Potential Safety ?

I have always been torn on this topic because there are so many fringe stories and situations that have to be taken into account here. There is also a large split between the public thought when it comes to how people think about the topic. One group, which I personally sympathize with believes that privacy is a right and nobody, not even governments should have the ability to break that without proof, even if they believe you are doing nefarious things. The other side of the argument says that giving up privacy is a small price to pay in order for safety, but I question how safe will you really become?

On the heels of the suicide bombing at the Arianna Grande concert this month, the topic of privacy has come up again like after many other attacks. Perhaps if the police were allowed to breach the privacy of this person who committed such an atrocious act, it may have been stopped. However the attacker already was reported multiple times by mosque leaders to the authorities and it apparently wasn’t taken seriously, or nothing was done about it. Reports of extremist attitude from mosque leaders where he attended seems like more than enough of a reason to investigate him thoroughly.

What I see in the majority of these cases is that even when we give up our privacy for this assumed “safety”, gross incompetence ends up making it pointless. So then we are just giving up out rights for nothing in return. We end up more exposed than ever and only marginally safer. If there was a perfect world where every single terrorist attack could be stopped if I was able to give up my privacy, I would seriously think about doing it, but that isn’t how things work. There is a small amount of data at best that proves that letting governments have more rights into privacy invasion helps the average person’s wellbeing.

There is also the straight up point of statistics and the amount of people actually being affected by terrorist attacks. I don’t want to devalue a human life, but terror attacks instill much more fear than casualties. The average person has a better chance of being struck by lightning than being killed in a terror attack. However, there is an extreme reaction to lock down an entire country after such an attack happens. Everyone wants some sort of retribution and is willing to give anything to gain it, even if it means sacrificing personal rights.

Fear is something that is extremely powerful and dangerous in an entire community and in that way terrorists are winning. By giving up our rights every time they launch an attack on us, only makes our personal freedoms as human beings weaker. It only proves that if they continue to launch attacks, we will become as repressed and bitter as they are. This is mainly why I believe it is not the correct path forward to give up our privacy.

I am genuinely curious to see what other people here think, because I know it is a polarizing topic. I would imagine just because of the audience here, most people are on my side of thinking, but don’t be afraid to speak out if you aren’t. I would like to hear all sides of the debate on this.