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In situations of life and death, it may be prudent to invade an individual's privacy so that we can better serve them, whether it is in keeping them alive or simply protecting them from themselves.

However, as it regards privacy and safety, it is important to recognize that life is not this clear cut thing, that occurrences in life have many factors attributed to them that cannot simply be fixed because of an invasion of privacy.

More privacy does not equal less safety, nor does it equal more safety.

However, knowing that absolute power corrupts absolutely, I do not think that everything should be monitored in a big brother, Orwellian fashion simply to ensure one's safety.

All the bridges, tunnels, buildings, all of the innumerable things that people have had to endure, and die to accomplish did not involve safety.

If anything, a perfect safe exist is impossible, as the very outcome of existence is to cease to exist altogether.

As fragile as we are as creatures physically, mentally and emotionally we are even more fragile.

Invading someone's privacy to the point where all their trash is searched, all the phones are tapped, all the traffic lights have surveillance cameras, and there are nanomachines in our blood stream, will not keep them any more safe than if none of these invasive actions were taken.

Safety does not stem from invading peoples privacy and watching their every move. Someone will always find a way around any form of surveillance, and as it regards finding terrorists or getting rid of illegal aliens, our country has been guilty of training foreign militants ourselves, selling them weapons, and allowing immigrants into the country as a form of cheap labor. If we wanted these things to stop, we could stop them. Violating an individual's right to privacy because of things that can be stopped without doing so would be stupid.

It is easy enough to spot ill behavior, and if we are unhappy with the laws we can change them legally.

If a home seems like a drug den, we create a law that allows us to investigate it.

Laws seem to protect criminals more than citizens because of the law makers and how they make the laws. If you want the laws to change, work to change them.

But do not offer up sacrificing our freedoms just to keep us safe. Crimes can still happen, it just makes it easier to catch my murderer after they kill me. Or to get a hold of that hit and run driver who killed me.

Hopefully, they are not wealthy and well connected or poor and an illegal resident, because even after they are caught they may still only do a little time or be deported, but I will be dead.

Prevention is better in keeping anyone safe than a fascistic Orwellian nightmare.

After all, this type of thinking is scary, and leads to volatile responses like the law in Texas, that allows people to defend their homes with extreme prejudice. As much as I feel and value human life, when a man is at home with his wife and children and a stranger enters his home to steal, if they die then so be it. They should not have been robbing the home in the first place, and no amount of Overseeing and privacy invasion would alter that situation.

Learn more about this author, Thaxton Lewis.
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