By: Leilani Bruce
This week I read an article by Yaldin and Marciano titled, “COVID surveillance in Israeli press.” This article talks about surveillance issues and rights, and how they affect people everyday and their privacy.
To start, the article touches on an international security issue that had some of the public outraged. It was in March of 2020, right when the COVID-19 pandemic swept the nation. Israel passed its international security agency to track the community's phone location in order to diminish the spread of COVID-19.
The public was not informed that the security team was tracking their phones and it caused distrust within the community. I remember when I took Media Law last semester and we learned a lot about invasion of privacy, and the rules and regulations that are needed to take place in order to secure everyone's right to privacy.
Based on what I remember from this class, this is definitely an invasion of privacy, and the public has every right to be outraged and upset. If the government is tapping the public's phones without their permission it causes distrust within the government. On their hand, I do remember that in some cases, the government can take certain actions if it has to deal with international security. Although I think the government tapping people's phones without permission is completely wrong, I do somewhat see the rationale behind it. I wonder what are all the rules behind deciding when someone's basic human right can be taken away from them?
If something like this were to happen to me and my direct community, I know there would be complete outrage and our government system as we know it would be ruined. We all have rights and deserve for those rights to be protected at all costs.
Right to privacy can be referred to as “1) The right not to have one's personal matters disclosed or publicized; the right to be left alone. 2) The right against undue government intrusion into fundamental personal issues and decisions.” That being said, everyone has the right to have information about their personal life and decisions, protected from public scrutiny.
In the article, there was also a lot of talk about journalists covering this story. I completely understand why so many journalists and news media outlets dove into this story since it was a major public and international security issue. Being a journalism major myself, this would be a great story to write, especially if I could talk to the people of Israel and see how they felt about this situation.
Overall, this article was a very interesting one to read and reflect on. I feel like out of all the articles I read before have not been as serious as this topic. I cannot begin to understand how the people of Israel are feeling and I am outraged that this happened to them. It almost makes me think about what our government is doing or maybe planning on doing within our community when it comes to our privacy.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/right_to_privacy
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