Safety & Accountability vs. Civil Rights & Privacy

          Politicians' unethical, immoral, or even illegal behaviors become exposed through potical scandals. Trusted, well-respected people in postions of trust, even doctors, teachers, or sports coaches, often shock us when we learn about their acts of abuse or exploitation of those whom they are supposed to protect and serve. Employees, over and over, are discovering that their lies, thefts, and other nonviolent and violent crimes continually surface through background checks or through being caught in the act on the job. Corruption and ethics violations abound among those in higher-level postions of prestige and power, including among CEO's. Corporate greed has become so institutionalized for so long that many people, fed up with it, have formed "Occupy" movements to voice their displeasure and disgust with it all. Volunteers, over and over, find themselves being caught in acts of abuse, exploitation, ethics violations, or other crimes, often through background checks. And, thanks to all forms of media where we can get our news, we continue to hear, constantly, about murders, rapes, abuse, expoitation, greed, and about a host of other nonviolent and violent crimes. Today, those of us raising or caring for minor children must be hypervigilant in protecting them, not only from bullies who run rampant and do their dirty work not only in schools and communities, but also on social networks. We cannot relax our guard in  keeping our minor children safe from predators not only in-person but also online. Thanks to all of this, we can count on security cameras and other devices monitoring our every move, as all forms of evil and crime get worse and worse and become more exposed via media outlets.
          What does all of this add up to? Because we live in a so-called "post September 11 era," thanks to our heightened concern and awareness about terrorism, and because media outlets and technology enable crimes of all kinds to become exposed, we are all being watched more carefully. This is true whether we are aware of it or not. Because of this, we are a little safer as there is much more awareness and advocacy about terrorism, nonviolent and violent crime and all forms of abuse. People in positions of power and prestige are being held accountable for their actions. Criminals are finding it harder and harder to hide.
          I remember even before Sept. 11, that I was doing a school assignment for a class and interviewing someone in a local pregnancy help center which helped girls and women facing crisis pregnancies. As I was talking to the woman I was assigned to and we walked by the room that held maternity clothes and other items for clients, I could not miss how she guarded the front of the maternity room from me as though she was certain that I would enter it and help myself to some of the items for myself. I was offended and hurt at being treated like a potential thief, guilty until proven innocent. But in a culture where stealing abounded and where this woman, not knowing me or my character, was worried about these donated goods and acted on her feelings.
          This is one example of how all of the heightened monitoring and surveillance can border on being intrusive, heavy-handed and intimidationg. Since so much of our lives is now documented and on online records, our past mistakes can come back to haunt us if we look for a apply for employment, a loan, entrance to higher education, an apartment, to buy a home or to seek to volunteer our services to nonprofits. Today, anyone who runs for elected office in politics or who has celebrity status can count on one thing: Most things of a questionable nature in their pasts are probably going to come out for exposure at some point. For better or worse, people are being emboldened to "come forward" with allegations of crime or abuse by  the famous or the powerful, and I realize that many of these accusations are legitimate and are coming from true victims/survivors. But too many people have brought false accusations, also. Also, we have become a very litigious society, suing even our own family members; so many today file frivolous lawsuits having nothing to do with loss of life, health, or substantial financial or other serious losses. Because of all this and more, we live in an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust. Much of it is justified but it just means that, in essence, we are guilty until proven innocent. This saddens me.
          Because of all this and because of our heightened safety and security awareness, when we want to rent an apartment, secure a loan, apply to college or graduate school, find a job, buy a home, or serve as a volunteer through a nonprofit, we can count on getting background checks and screenings and on those checks and screenings becoming more and more thorough. Because dishonesty is so commonplace, our identities and what we say on applications and at interviews are no longer taken at face value. I realize the immense value of background checks and screening in safeguarding the best interests for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations, their own personnel, their clients and the general public. Background checks and screening serve as deterrents to predators and other harmful people; therefore we can count on them becoming more and more a part of our culture in our free world.
          As for social networking, because online bullies, scams, and other online evils and crimes are so commonplace, to survive and keep our families and ourselves safe, we cannot take anyone's identity or word at face value anymre but must verify these if we can. If you and I are in the same social network, for example, but we do not know each other outside the context of social network sites, it is hard for either of us to prove to the other that we are the honest, true people that we know ourselves to be and which those we know face-to-face know us to be. For many predators and criminals  have a way of mixing in with all the good, true people online and can be very tough to identify the bad, harmful people. Accountability is catching up with the Internet.
          We should be thankful for for our ever-increasing accountability, though few of us want this "gift," as through it we all become safer. But many of us are concerned that accountability not be taken too far, intrude too much on privacy rights or restrict our civil liberties too much. As more and more crimes and scandals surface, and more and more legislation tends to be proposed. Maybe what may be needed is to improve existing legislation. We do not want to become a police state where government does not trust us to handle our daily affairs.
           It is called trust but verify.

Keeping Safe Online

      Your profile on Facebook or Twitter gets hacked.
      You get a suspicious friend request from a perfect stranger; the next day you get a Facebook warning about your "abusive, highly offensive behavior";
      You keep getting hateful, vicious comments from other users, in response to your posts or photos, maybe even threats;
      You have an online conflict and notice, later, that other users connected with the user you had the conflict with, are suddenly deleting you from their pages, even blocking you;
      Users of the opposite sex keep appearing on Chat, pumping you for personal information, even your home address to inquiring about your sex life;
      You get messages on Chat telling you that you have been tagges in a video and, providing links, ask you to view it;
       You see a notice that seems to be from Facebook asking you to verify your account for you are about to be deactivated, with a link for you to click;
       You wake up one morning to learn, to your dismay, that your computer appears to be on and later, you discover that someone has accessed your bank account!

      You get the picture. We use social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and others, to connect with people and to satisfy our varying agendas for using these networks. Yet we are likely to encounter hackers, scammers, spammers, bullies, and even criminals, or users who are merely unfriendly or unstable.
      Let me share a few of my online experiences, which I'm sure are similar to things others experience online, unfortunately. Many months ago, I had a major conflict with an online user over a certain issue. Days later, I found that a number of other users with connections to this user, were removing me from their friends lists, even blocking me. This hurt tremendously, as it was all based on a misunderstanding and I had no way of knowing what was going on, only circumstantial evidence. And it reinforced in me a feeling of who could I trust? For months, I lived in fear of my online reputation being destroyed and became paranoid of others in my network. I did NOT see this is "just Facebook stuff"!  Lesson: Do not trust anyone you don't know outside of social networks until you spend lots of time building trust and are reasonably sure of these users and their characters.
      This past summer, on the eve of my birthday, June 29, I had logged into Facebook and was checking out my homepage. Suddenly, I saw a very offensive profile, bearing a pornographic profile picture; the user called himself a screenname that is not fit to put in print. Upon the urgent request of the person who shared the offending user's profile, I pulled up this user's profile, checked it out, hitting the "Report" button to submit my report to Facebook concerning this user's profile and photos. Minutes later, I received a friend request. I checked it out and took note of who sent it: the user I had just reported! I let this request sit on my profile, unanswered: I had no intention of ever accepting such a friend request.
      The following morning, my birthday, I woke up and after awhile, I logged into Facebook. I posted on some group and fan pages, intending to leave my wall clear for birthday greetings. To my dismay, I visited my homepage and saw a warning sitting on top of my page. To paraphrase, I was told: "You have uploaded offensive or pornographic material that is offensive to other users or is abusive. If you do not remove this material, your account will be deactivated."
      I remembered the suspicious friend request I received the night before and knew exactly who was behind this, and why! The user whose profile I had reported, no doubt to get even with me for my report, had gotten hold of my online identity and Facebook now had me down as a sex offender! I was distraught and upset and did not know how to fix this. I composed a note about my situation, which received only one comment, which had nothing to do with my actual post. What a "birthday gift"!
      Eventually, the warning on my homepage concerning the false accusations against me, disappeared on its own, but I continued to feel quite disillusioned and fearful about my online reputation because of my stolen online identity. Worse, could this end up on my criminal records under my Social Security Number? Lesson: When you receive a suspicious friend request, you need to do something about it. The options for this are marking these requests as spam or even blocking the sender so he or she cannot see you to do anything to you.
      In strict terms, cyberbullying is a term reserved for children and teenagers. Cyberharassment is the counterpart term used for adults. In any case, it is up to us as adults to protect our minor children online, while we must take total responsibility for our own online safety.        
      Numerous resources abound that show us how to keep ourselves and our families safe. Here are just a few:

https://www.facebook.com/#!/security  NEW WARNING: This page appears, itself, to be a hacker site! Facebook users, including I, have been receiving scam messages via this page.
https://www.facebook.com/#!/Facecrooks
http://www.staysafeonline.org