EOTO 2

 Total Information Awareness Act

The Total Information Awareness program was created in 2002, but the Idea was proposed shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001. It was named this until 2003 when the name was changed to “The Terrorism Information Awareness”. 

 

The Total Information Awarenesses project was established in the United States, they wanted to apply surveillance and technology to track and monitor terrorists. With this protecting the U.S. from any other attacks, doing this by using national security and the new Total Information Awareness (TIA). In other words, people would like to say that the TIA is “spying” on us and everything we do.  

The implications of the total information awareness act were more effective methods to prevent terrorism, by surveilling citizens and making sure their actions were lawful. They had to ask themselves moral questions between government security and personal privacy and rights. In other words, people would like to say that the TIA was “spying” on them and everything they do. Increased anxiety and fear among Americans. Because of this act and the fact that Americans knew the government was observing their communication and their every move. American were scared to do anything wrong for the most part so majority were on their best behavior.  

This can have negative and positive effects on our society. The positive effects are self-explanatory, it can protect the United States from more terrorist attacks. There has been greater efficiency in investigations, being able to observe and monitor technology can help solve cases that are undergoing investigations. This also has helped crime prevention immensely. The main goal was to be able to prevent another terrorist attack, but it has helped prevent more crimes than just that. Any crime that goes on through technology can be easier to be tracked, this can help the government. The negative effects are an invasion of privacy. People are to believe that even though the act is supposed to give awareness to the government and used for safety reasons, the invasion into our lives is way too much. People have been fighting that it raises Fourth Amendment concerns. The Fourth Amendment is supposed to protect you from the government searching through your things or even taking them without a good reason. The conerns of this are that this act is taking away that Fourth Amendment right by tracking our phones. For this reason, there was a huge lack of trust from the public in the government.  

It can affect society, myself, friends, family, in many ways. In this day and age social media and owning a cell phone is almost a necessity. I don't think I know one person without a phone and because of this it can directly affect everyone.  

 

Overall, the TIA was a huge change to our society. Especially now that social media is just getting bigger and bigger and has been growing since this act has begun. Whether people believe It was more positive than negative or vice versa. It still has done amazing this for us while gaining security all over the U.S.