Response to Snowden and Peeping Tom Articles

           The Snowden article was very interesting. The fact that this whole journey has been documented, and that these people are willing to alter their lives in such a dramatic way to get this information out there, and what the consequences of releasing this information are makes a huge statement in and of its self. It means that they think that this is that important. Censorship in a lot of ways. is a seriously corrupt part of government. I believe that censorship is important to a certain extent, because if people see documents out of context, or if military documents are released that could foil a plan for a necessary operation we could be putting the country at risk. However, the government should not be withholding information from us that we should know about. And I think that if they are withholding important information that we should be aware of, that information should be leaked. I know that the information that Snowden released is about NSA surveillance, but we don't know exactly what the information is. In any case I say bravo Snowden. If you feel that strongly that we should be aware of this information, and that it should be presented to us in a proper manner, and not shown to us out of context, then it must be pretty damn important and for a damn good reason.
           The Peeping Tom presents a very serious issue for any and all photographers. This photographer took pictures of a family through their apartment window without them knowing, and then put the pieces on display, and sold them for $10,000 a piece. Generally when you take a picture of someone in their home through their window, it's considered an invasion of privacy and it is illegal. However the court through this case out because this family was living in a glass walled apartment without any curtains. The court ruled that if they were living in a glass house then they forfeit their expectancy of privacy. I think that that might be true to some extent. However, though I have never lived in a glass apartment myself, I would think that if the apartment across the way was designed similarly that there would be an unwritten code of respect that you don't go taking pictures of the people across the way. But if you break that code, all you can really get are angry neighbors, the court still cant do anything. If I had been one of the people in those pictures I would probably not have cared about his taking the pictures, but the fact that he made money on them would have annoyed me. And I would have sued for 15% of his profit.