The government can do anything under the name of national security

One day I saw a surprising scene on the screen when I was watching T.V. An airplane was flying and then it clashed with the tall building. At first, I thought I must have been seeing a kind of one scene of the movie. However, it wasn’t a movie. It was real. The people on the screen was screaming and shouting “Oh, my God!!” I couldn’t believe that the happening on the T.V. screen was real. After a while, T.V. reporter announced that the airplane clashed with the world trade center buildings

I think the government can do anything to keep people safe from dangers caused by someone. That is the most important and main duty of the government. The government should do various things to keep people safe. For example, there is a security camera. In Japan, security cameras are used in supermarkets, bookstores, rental shops and so on. The place we can see them most is in the banks and booths of cash dispenser. In London, security cameras are equipped here and there. I think the Japanese government should do the same thing in the big cities, such as Tokyo and Osaka like London. What about monitoring the telephone conversations and censoring the internet? We can do it technically. Moreover, we can tell the specific person using many names from others by using the certain technology.

On the other hand, problems about privacy are controversial. The government must keep safety but the government also keeps people’s privacy. I guess that the government is in dilemma because both are very important for people. We want the government to keep us safe and at the same time, we want the government to keep our privacies, too. Please think over your wishes. Do you think these two dreams come true at the same time? I think it’s impossible. So, we have to give up either. Don’t you think we couldn’t do anything if we were killed by the terrorists?

There is a law called Megan’s law in the U.S. According to Wikipedia, Megan's Law is the term used to denote a number of state laws in the United States that require law enforcement authorities to identify what are generally called sex offenders to the public at large through various media, including in some cases the Internet.
Under the law, the details of the offenders seem to be open to the public until they die. It’s a horrible law, isn’t it? We can know the details of the sex offenders by using the internet any time we like. One story of the sex offender is introduced. He says he’s very nervous at the workplace because someone knows him or everybody talks about him. He’s always afraid of being fired, even if he’s already finished his prison term. The main point I want to say is that there is a severe law like this to protect the innocent people. According to the article of the Wired News, which is a very interesting website, says that London-based Privacy International announced Monday its 2003 U.K. Big Brother Awards, which the group presents annually to "the most persistent and egregious privacy invaders in Britain. Prime Minister Tony Blair came away with the top prize, winning the "Lifetime Menace" award for what the group characterized as "his active involvement in the government's attack on civil liberties. The article says that Blair's government has angered privacy groups with his plans to force phone companies and Internet service providers to retain users' data for 12 months as part of the country's stepped-up war on terrorism and crime. Only 12 months!! It’s too short compared with Megan’s Law. Well, think of the time we are sick. The doctor and the nurse know the detail of my body. They exam my body and record the results. They know everything about my body condition. But I don’t complain about it because I want to get well as soon as possible and I know they don’t use my data of the body except the treatment and I believe that they keep my data importantly.

As everybody already knows, terrorists are murderers. They do anything for their purposes. Therefore we also do anything we can do to protect our lives from them. Privacy is very important but if we were dead, it would be meaningless. Our priority is to survive. Long time ago, when we talked about wars, we used to say how great our weapons were or how brave our soldiers were. But now the most important thing to win is intelligence. We need more correct information. So, I think it’s good to legalize wiretapping, for instance. Whether the government uses the law or not is another story. I think the existence of the law might have possibilities to make terrorists scare or abandon their plans.

There’s Megan’s Law to protect children from crazy people. The law is very strict for offenders. We should fight against terrorism with the strong mind like this. So, I think the government can do anything under the name of national security.