Synthesizing Freedom and Safety

           The technology brought up in The Circle has the power to do so much good in the world, but also so much evil. Not only do the SeeChange cameras make it easier to catch crime, but also new ideas are being presented all the time to stop all crime and make the world a safer place. Unfortunately each development that is meant to protect people also strips away their freedoms, and could potentially cause more problems than it solves.

SeeChange: The First Step

            The SeeChange cameras (described in an earlier post) are a great way to limit crime. They can be placed in any public area and will see and hear everything in that area, while being almost undetectable. This advancement makes it very easy to identify and track down the culprits of crimes, and eventually starts to act as a deterrent for future crimes.

            These cameras also make it very easy for anyone to track the movements of any person. That not only is creepy and a violation of privacy, but also could lead to different types of crimes than the ones it may be stopping.

TruYouth: Child Tracking

            I’m sure many parents would say that they would love to know where their kids are at all times. With TruYouth, that is finally possible.

TruYouth is a program that imbeds a microchip into a child’s bone which tracks where that child is at all times. This technology was introduced to stop kidnappings. If a child can always be tracked, they cannot be taken from their parents and locked up and tortured for years on end. Even if a child is taken, their parent can see where they are and law enforcement can arrive on scene, hopefully before too much damage is done.

This program, while it was designed with a positive purpose in mind, is not just dangerous, but a huge violation of trust. Part of growing up should be getting to make mistakes, try new things, and yes, occasionally, break some rules without your parents knowing. This technology would make it impossible for children to do anything without their parents consent. This may seem like a good thing to some, but this technology would take away a lot of what it means to be a child, and that is something that really should be protected.

The possibilities for harm if the technology got into the wrong hands are even more sinister. The technology could easily be used by a government body to track the exact movements of all their citizens, giving them immense and unregulated power over them. This technology could also be used by pedophiles and other child obsessed people to find the exact whereabouts of children.

Can Freedom and Safety Exist Together?

            Although safety could be considered a freedom, it dramatically inhibits another important freedom: freedom of privacy. Both of these examples presented in the story could be very important in stopping crime, but yet both have tremendous drawbacks.

            So, can freedom and safety exist together? I think so. But the right balance has to be reached. The real question is: How much privacy are we willing to give up in order to feel safe?