I believe that the way Snowden described the United States privacy is correct. The Privacy act of 1974 was created to balance the government’s need to maintain information about individuals with the rights of individuals to be protected against unwarranted invasions of their privacy resulting from the collection, maintenance, use, and disclosure of personal information. However, the Patriot Act, passed into law shortly after the 9/11 attacks, gave the federal government significant powers to legally spy on American citizens in the name of the War on Terror. Those powers, according the Patriot Act itself, were set to expire in 2005 yet, they were never retracted.
As society becomes more modernized the advancement of technology has increased greatly to where tracking by any mobile device is possible; this is not only by phone call, but also by pinging from wifi networks- even if your phone is turned off. Making it almost impossible for your location to not be found at all times. With this pandemic being such a issuing topic countries are doing whatever they can to keep this as contained as possible and with the historical background the United States has of abusing it’s power for the “betterment of the country” , we could be in a lot of trouble.
