Should people make more of an effort to keep some things private?

Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on
this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken
from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Privacy is something Man has always sought, from his biblical creation, to
modern days fight against internet surveillance; and quite truthfully so. It is
essential to ones sense of liberty and therefore should be honored and protected.
However, many argue that normal people have nothing illegal to hide, therefore,
for their own safety, could sacrifice a high level of their privacy. This is a debate
that has started long ago and has yet to be resolved. From Benjamin Franklin,
one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America, to George Orwells
masterpiece 1984, to contemporary privacy supporters Richard Stallman,
Edward Snowden and Cory Doctorow.
Liberty has always been linked with privacy and should be held at the same level.
In the words of Benjamin Franklin, one of the greatest supporters of liberty,
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety,
deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.. This quote is more than relevant to the
answer of whether sacrificing a high level of privacy on the altar of security
is correct. It basically states that personal safety is meaningless if there is no
personality to protect, and personality is defined by the private thoughts and
choices of ones mind. If they were no longer private, if no one felt shame on
expressing them, if peoples insecurities were abolished, no personality would
remain, but all would be an amorphous mass of people, without singularity.
Therefore, it is meaningless to let go of personal privacy in exchange of provided
security.
George Orwells novel, 1984, is an ode to the protection of privacy. In it,
a world of omnipresent government surveillance is presented, where privacy
is unknown. The novels protagonist rebels against governments all-seeing
eye, only to find himself imprisoned, tortured and eventually stripped of all
his rebellious concepts and forced to once again love the Big Brother. This
novel, although somewhat dystopian, can be very much related to modern days
society. It stresses the need of people to preserve their privacy, and the possible
consequences of psychological oppression.
The idea of protection of privacy is strongly embraced by many modern internet celebrities. Such people are Edward Snowden, an American computer
professional, Cory Doctorow, a journalist, and Richard Stallman, a software
freedom activist. All these people have gone to great lengths to support and
defend personal privacy on the internet, each one in their own way. Edward
Snowden has leaked classified information about illicit government surveillance
from the National Security Agency, Cory Doctorow has written countless articles
and books on the matter and Richard Stallman has devoted his life to developing
software that respects the users privacy and to defending the importance of
personal privacy. The work of all these people shows that personal privacy, even
in the modern days of revolutionary advances, should be protected at all costs.
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In conclusion, personal privacy is a very important subject of contemporary

societies. It has been shown, throughout history, that it has been, and should be,
defended at all costs. Whether by the words of Benjamin Franklin, the works of
George Orwell, or the acts of Cory Doctorow, Edward Snowden and Richard
Stallman. Thus, people should fight for their privacy and defend it by all means.
Rafael Ketsetsides