Fears over the questions of privacy and our own safety have reached a significant level of paranoia. Personal freedom--whether walking down the street, flying on a plane, or surfing on the Internet--has been jeopardized by the tragic incidents of September 11, 2001. Emilio Bombay's letter, "Would You View This With Your Mother?," heightens our awareness of how privacy is being manipulated and personal freedoms threatened. Since the Internet has become the most common and easiest means of communication and research, restrictions on privacy will only increase as a result of the attacks on America. Before these attacks, people were not overly cautious in their daily routines of checking and sending Email or surfing on the Net. Now that our vulnerability has been exposed, so will our "private" lives.

Bombay's letter introduces a not so avid computer user, or a relatively novice Internet surfer, to issues to which most of us are either unaware or skeptical. The First Amendment of the Constitution might extend free speech to the Internet, but who in their right mind would want to look at animals in compromising positions, let alone store such images on a computer? I might be taking for granted that people are decent enough to be disgusted at the thought of Lassie and a neighbor sharing more than a Scooby snack, but I don't think so. The Internet has a degree of freedom, but morals need to be assessed in all our daily applications, including innocent surfing.

After watching the film Enemy of the State, I was in shock at just how powerful "the geeks in charge," as Bombay terms them, really are. The movie introduces satellite technology that can follow and track a person's every step. We all know how easy a phone line can be tapped, but this movie raises some serious privacy issues back in the cobwebs of my own head. Now combine the ease of the phone tap with the complex, but all too real, nature of satellite technology, and we find ourselves questioning how private the Internet really is.

If perversion is the question, and someone finds offensively illegal child porn invigorating, I don't think anyone will get away with it for too long. Every site that's visited or every Email sent gets filtered through a system much larger than a new PC from Best Buy, so every time someone checks out that illegal site or sends terroristic threats via Email, someone is watching. We are not alone, nor do we have privacy on the Internet, and from now on the system is going to be even less private.

So my message is simple: Take pride in life and how fragile it is, enjoy being who you are, but for all rudimentary reasons, don't jeopardize yourself, your family, or even others simply because you lack enough judgment to determine what's right from wrong.

Bombay, Emilio. "Would You View This with Your Mother?" CyberReader. 2nd ed. Ed. Victor J. Vitanza. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 1999. 210-211.