The topic of constitutional rights has long been a hot button that brings out fierce opinions and conflict. One specific topic that draws more attention than the others is the fourth amendment, or the protection from illegal search and seizure. This protection is fiercely enforced in the physical realm, but is grossly overlooked and abused in the digital by means of hacking and data collection requests. One instance of this is the longstanding practice of data turnover orders by the government towards companies such as Microsoft and Apple. On April 14, 2016 Microsoft filed suit due to the fact that “Over the past 18 months, the U.S. government has required that we maintain secrecy regarding 2,576 legal demands” (blog.microsoft.com)
This lawsuit …show more content…
This causes Microsoft to either choose between infinitely violating their clients fourth amendment right, or to violate the law and share this information with their customers. The logical choice in this circumstance is to uphold the prima facie of doing no harm and tell their customers, but by doing so they would be breaking the law and bringing harm upon themselves and their shareholders. Microsoft seems to have no issue with fulfilling the data requests, their qualm stems from the secrecy orders that are preventing them from “fulfilling their obligations, which they must do in order to serve their clients.” (farber pg 133) This obligation is to uphold confidentiality between client and professional , and therefore the customer's fourth amendment right are included. By not allowing Microsoft to tell their client, the relationship between client and professional does not exists.
The government is violating a core principle of Deontological ethics by utilizing Microsoft as a means, rather than an end. They are doing this by violating the company's (and therefore its employee's) first amendment right to speak to their customers (blog.microsoft.com) and remain transparent. This transparency is in the customer's best interest, and is the most ethical action in the situation. This is the core reason why the lawsuit is happening in the first …show more content…
This objection would fall under the category of emotional reaction. Simply because something has failed in the past does not inherently mean that future iterations will fail as well. Another possible objection is that by increasing the difficulty to acquire this information would increase the likelihood of harm coming to people. This is due to the increased challenge of finding information that could potentially prevent crimes. Although this argument holds some validity, the extent to which this would happen are in all likelihood minimal. So long as there is probable cause to suspect that the person being searched is guilty, a search warrant is far from an impossible thing to attain and therefore very little hindrance would be experienced. The fourth amendment is a vital resource to the personal freedom of every American. Although violation of this freedom can at times benefit the masses to a certain extent, the overall impact of doing so is the erosion of personal freedoms and increased risk of abuse due to that erosion. The government attaching indefinite gag orders to data requests is utterly unethical and must be stopped to preserve personal
This lawsuit …show more content…
This causes Microsoft to either choose between infinitely violating their clients fourth amendment right, or to violate the law and share this information with their customers. The logical choice in this circumstance is to uphold the prima facie of doing no harm and tell their customers, but by doing so they would be breaking the law and bringing harm upon themselves and their shareholders. Microsoft seems to have no issue with fulfilling the data requests, their qualm stems from the secrecy orders that are preventing them from “fulfilling their obligations, which they must do in order to serve their clients.” (farber pg 133) This obligation is to uphold confidentiality between client and professional , and therefore the customer's fourth amendment right are included. By not allowing Microsoft to tell their client, the relationship between client and professional does not exists.
The government is violating a core principle of Deontological ethics by utilizing Microsoft as a means, rather than an end. They are doing this by violating the company's (and therefore its employee's) first amendment right to speak to their customers (blog.microsoft.com) and remain transparent. This transparency is in the customer's best interest, and is the most ethical action in the situation. This is the core reason why the lawsuit is happening in the first …show more content…
This objection would fall under the category of emotional reaction. Simply because something has failed in the past does not inherently mean that future iterations will fail as well. Another possible objection is that by increasing the difficulty to acquire this information would increase the likelihood of harm coming to people. This is due to the increased challenge of finding information that could potentially prevent crimes. Although this argument holds some validity, the extent to which this would happen are in all likelihood minimal. So long as there is probable cause to suspect that the person being searched is guilty, a search warrant is far from an impossible thing to attain and therefore very little hindrance would be experienced. The fourth amendment is a vital resource to the personal freedom of every American. Although violation of this freedom can at times benefit the masses to a certain extent, the overall impact of doing so is the erosion of personal freedoms and increased risk of abuse due to that erosion. The government attaching indefinite gag orders to data requests is utterly unethical and must be stopped to preserve personal