The Impact Of The Patriot Act

Submitted By corinneholmes
Words: 765
Pages: 4

Information Technology Acts The act that first comes to mind when thinking about the advances in information technology that resulted in ethical issues would be the Patriot Act,2001, renewed 2006. The patriot Act opened so many door in the technology field that legally were not allowed to be opened in the first place. Shortly after 9/11 happened the Patriot Act came into affect and it stripped citizens of their privacy. The act allowed the government to put camera up at every traffic light, side walk, outside of buildings. As far as technology goes the act used every single piece that was available to use. With the new act in place people felt that there constitutional rights were being taken away and no one can take away American's constitutional rights. Ethically the government was filming and recording people without their consent and people were and still are feeling invaded. The use of this technology was to help America stop terrorists and yet just this year 2013 a terrorist act happened in Boston, a heavily filled area with technology and the government got the whole incident on tape and still was not fast enough or aware enough to stop it. The Patriot Act is still holding ethical issues with citizens and there freedom and privacy being taken. I know a lot of people who feel in between with the issue and I am one of them. I do like the fact that if I get into an accident in a city, there is probably a camera somewhere close that caught the entire thing on tape. On the other hand I do not like the feeling of big brother watching my every move and it gives me the feeling that I am being followed or being watched, it is a very unsettling. The Act has also allowed the Government to access phone calls and records whenever they need them and your information and privacy is no longer active if the government wants it. I am starting to feel that the Government has a little to much power with creating acts to help the Government in the long run and not the people. HIPAA Act, 1996 was created to make healthcare facilities and providers more efficient and to improve the quality so that all doctors in the United States would be linked to one data base and that would be where all of the patient records would be kept. The technology aspect of the HIPAA Act is clever and efficient in a way that everyone who is seen by a doctor, clinic, hospital, and so on will be added into this electronic database and it would also have the ability to be accessed by any other doctor in the United States to look up history. It would make it easier to keep files and records together in one place so you wont have to keep up with them. Within the database would be all of your prescriptions, the doctor you saw, what the appointment was for, ect and since drug stores have been using this