The Concept of Privacy
In one of California’s elections, the citizens were asked whether they were willing to stop same-sex couples from marrying with the crafting of Proposition 8. However, donors who contributed to the campaign’s support found their names, addresses, and amount of contribution on Google Maps, making them vulnerable to those opposing the proposition (Stone, 2009). The controversial website that was charged with the publishing of this confidential information on Google Maps was identified as eightmaps.com.
The donors towards the proposition reported receiving death threats and envelopes laced with a powdery white substance. The release of confidential information belonging to the donors, such as name, approximate location, amount of donation, and the donor’s employers, is sufficient information for the interested parties to find the missing details, such as home addresses (Kearl, 2015). On the other hand, it can be argued that the practice of eightmaps.com was in line with California’s Political Reform Act of 1974, which required contributions of $100 and above to be made public (Kearl, 2015). In one of the incidences, a college professor donated $100 in support of Proposition 8, indicating that he supported the decision by the civil unions concerning gay marriage and claimed that he was not interested in changing the traditional meaning of marriage. Upon the listing of his donation by eight maps, he received many confrontational email messages, some of which were anonymous.
The side effects of the move of eight maps were also exhibited in the case of Joseph Clare, an accountant in San Francisco. Upon giving his $500 donation in support of Proposition 8, he received various email messages accusing him of donating to hate. Based on these threats, Mr. Clare claimed that disclosure laws were initially formulated to expose large corporate donors interested in influencing the award of state projects through their donations (Stone, 2009). However, this problem can be addressed by implementing two-fold measures. These measures are raising the minimum contribution for public reporting from $100 to cushion small donors who donate out of goodwill and put regulations for people interested in accessing donor information to present their identification, for instance, their name and credit card number (Stone, 2009).
References
Kearl, M. K. (2015). “Is Gay the New Black?” An Intersectional Perspective on Social Movement Rhetoric in California’s Proposition 8 Debate. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 12(1), 63-82.
Stone, B. (2009). Prop 8 donor website shows disclosure law is a 2-edged sword. New York Times, 7.a:link {text-decoration: none;}a:visited {text-decoration: none;
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Instructions
In order to complete assignment #1 you will need to answer the below questions. Please complete the questions in a Word document and then upload the assignment for grading. When assigning a name to your document, please use the following format (last name_Assignment #1). Use examples from the readings, lecture notes, and outside research to support your answers. The assignment must be a minimum of 1 full page in length with a minimum of 2 – outside sources. Please be sure to follow APA guidelines for citing and referencing sources.
The Concept of Privacy
Privacy is a concept that is rapidly evolving in relation to the most public of mediums, the Internet, which has become even more super-charged with social networking websites. In a recent California election, one ballot measure, Proposition 8, asked voters a question on marriage. Donors to the Prop 8 campaign found that their names, addresses, and amount of contribution were masked up with Google Maps and thus rendered into a format showing the world a map image of donors’ names, street addresses, and dollar contributions. All this data is public record information already, but it is still quite inconvenient to access. What are the side effects of this action?
Assignment Rubric ( 100 Points)
Synthesis of Concepts 60
Writing Standards – APA format 20
Timeliness 20