Blog #9 EOTO 2: Reaction

A concept I had never heard of before this second round of presentations was The Five Eyes Alliance. I have linked the same article as the presenter originally included because I went back to read more about this topic, and found it very helpful in understanding the who, what, where, when, and how of this specialized group. Essentially, five countries, the United States, Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand formed an agreement, or alliance, in response to the events of World War II that has continuously monitored issues of terrorism, cyber attacks, and other threats to international security since. ___________________________________________________

Originally, it began as an agreement between just the UK and the USA that was signed in 1946 with the purpose of tracking military operations of the Axis Powers in the second World War. Later on, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand would join the party as well. Once all 5 countries were in, they built a network and system of intelligence-sharing that allowed them to monitor potential security threats across the globe. 

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However, even though this group is majorly concerned with matters of international security, we as citizens, of course have the right to be concerned about the risks of this level of government surveillance to our right to privacy. One of the videos assigned in another blog prompt mentioned that the phones used by law-abiding citizens are the same phones used by terrorists; the technology is the same and the surveillance capabilities are the same as well. This means that anything the government wants to know about you, even if you're not the bad guy they are after, they can and will use their ability to do so. 

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This presentation highlighted the importance of balancing security with privacy and made me contemplate bigger questions like how much access to data the government should have as our relationship with technology as a society grows. The government should have limits to how much information they can gather, but on the other hand we want them to be able to protect us from cyberattacks that are becoming an increasingly common problem.