TOW #25: Article (Facebook, Amazon, Our Government and Your Privacy)

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/04/23/facebook-amazon-our-government-and-your-privacy/

Writing Goal: Provide effective, relevant evidence to support my claim


Every day, we give out personal information on the internet--to shopping sites, to social media, to emails. When it comes to invading our privacy, is there really a difference between Facebook and the NSA? John Stossel, an analyst for Fox News and former co-anchor of 20/20, feels strongly about the government's ability to track its citizens and their technology usage. In "Facebook, Amazon, Our Government and Your Privacy," Stossel uses direct comparisons and simple sentence structure to argue that the moral issue is not that the government invades our privacy, but that  it does not have our consent to do so.

Stossel's main argument is based on comparing and contrasting the ways that private websites and the government invade our privacy. He begins by reminding his audience that they nonchalantly agree to be tracked and give out personal information on the internet. Nobody even reads the terms and conditions because we're so accustomed to threats like identity fraud that we don't take drastic steps to prevent it. On the other hand, the government doesn't want to steal your identity; they say they just collect patterns of phone numbers. Looking at both groups, Stossel argues, "By comparison, the National Security Agency's data mining seems relatively benign.[...] But the distinction we care about shouldn't be whether they know my name. The important difference is whether what you do is voluntary." The most important comparison doesn't lie within the actions or their intents, but within . We choose to their give our information out to private sites but not to the government, and that difference is all that matters.

In addition, Stossel often uses short declarative sentences for much of the article. This gives him the effect of stating fact or truth; a reader assesses the validity of each individual sentence more than the group of them. For example, Stossel writes, "But we don't place an infinite value on privacy. [...] What we really value is the freedom to choose when we'll do that and when we'll tell people to butt out. We can never tell government to butt out." Although one cannot factually state what all of society values, Stossel presents his viewpoint as if he is doing just that. By acting as if there is no room to argue, Stossel makes the reader more likely to agree with his perspective rather than consider alternatives.

Stossel's comparisons and declarative sentences allow him to effectively argue against government tracking of civilians. He appears blind to opposing viewpoints, but still manages to consider the complexity of the issue at hand: it's okay that the government is getting more involved, but not okay that it's involuntary on our part.