Surveillance is no different from the casual practice of people watching, but instead of being a casual practice that might occur at one park, or at one restaurant, mass surveillance is sustained over time, and is done on a significant number of people. This practice was put in place to pay attention not just to any random person that roams the streets, but to pay attention to a specific group of people and for a specified reason. This is what raises much controversy about the issue of mass surveillance. It does not have to involve watching, sometimes it can also be done by listening, smelling, or detective hardware. When a cellphone conversation is bugged, this is mass surveillance. When a dog is used to sniff out drugs at the border, this is mass surveillance. The ethics behind this issue have been debated time and again, but whichever point wins, it still remains to be seen that surveillance is a neutral activity whose application can be geared towards good or bad (Cohen, p25). Yet most continue to argue over the morality of the issue. As we delve into this matter, there will be specific questions that logically need to be answered in order create a proper analysis that has the capability to be brought to a final conclusion and answer. Whose responsibility is it to spy on the masses? And under which circumstances is it right to listen is? Is mass surveillance right at all? These are the questions that thus paper will explore—analyzing the two sides to the sharp edged sword that is mass surveillance.The History of Mass Surveillance EthicsJeremy Benthamcame up with the idea of The Panopticon- an idea that was considered among thefirst to contribute to the ethical debate on mass surveillance (Bentham 1995).The proposed the concept of The Panopticon – a circular prison whose cells wereadjacent to the outside walls and whose center had a tower that hosted theprison manager. The work of this manager would be to watch the inmates as theywent about their daily business. It would be built in such a way that thesupervisor would see the inmates, but the watched could not see this supervisorat any point in time. There would also be a means of communication that allowedthe supervisor on top of the tower to shout out their demands to the prisoners.The principle of the system was that these prisoners would not know they wereunder surveillance, but seeing as the supervisor would somehow have access toall their secrets, they would, eventually, come to assume that they were beingwatched and listened to at all times (Cropf, Cropf & Bagwell, p65). This would,in turn, encourage them to behave in the required manner, and in case they hadvisitors over, these visitors would also be discouraged from committing crimeson the behalf of the inmates.The concept ofthe Panopticon does not end there. In his book, 1984, George Orwelltakes this concept to a whole new level (Orwell 2004). Orwell magnified thisconcept to reach way beyond the inmates in Bentham’s idea. In 1984, thePanopticon took the shape of a two-way television that gave the governmentvisual and audio access to the homes and work offices of its citizens. In thecase of prisoners, these citizens would always be reminded that they were beingwatched. Orwell discusses both the reasons and the impact of doing somethinglike this.Furtherexploring this issue is Michel Foucault in the book Discipline and Punish (Foucault1991). The book explores the obvious use and abuse of power that is behind theidea of mass surveillance. He analyzes how prisons have grown from a means ofpunishment, to a way of punishing and disciplining offenders for their wrongs.With something like the Panopticon, Foucault argues that prisoners became likesocial experiments- denied their very basic freedoms in an attempt to punishand discipline them. These three references in history raised fundamentalquestions on the ethics of surveillance, and although their text mostlyrevolves around a prison setting, one cannot help but equate this concept tosociety such that the general population in a country become the prisoners, andthe supervisor watching from the tower at the center of the Panopticon becomesthe government.Modern SurveillanceSurveillancehas evolved from a primitive and a careless procedure to a carefully plannedout scheme that involves more than a few parties. The technologicaladvancements that the contemporary society so enjoys has become the very toolto be used against them. This realization has made people question the role ofmass surveillance. This debate has spilled over to the field of academics wherefields of study like Surveillance Studies have come up, brining jurists,sociologists, philosophers, and scientists together to examine the ethics, thescience, and the reasons behind mass surveillance (Cropf, Cropf & Bagwell,p80).Today, thanksto technology, mass surveillance has become very complex, both as a socialsubject and as a science. Now, people can be watched with discreteness thanksto the mobility and small size of freshly invented mass surveillance devices.Surveillance is like a wide, wild wave from the ocean that no one ever seescoming. Take the instance of CCTV (Closed Circuit Television) cameras. Thesedevices are there to gaze and stare as people mover about daily. On the otherside is an anonymous viewer that is slowly making conclusions about the way wewalk, the way we talk, and the way we live. Unlike the centralized Panopticon,this type of mass surveillance is watching people on an unimaginable scale. Thenetwork behind this system transfers magnitude of information back and forthevery passing minute (Fuchs, p46). The computerized society is practicallyexposing itself to be watched and followed around. But surveillance is here fortwo reasons- to stalk and probe into the private affairs of other people, or tobring forth justice. In some cases, surveillance has even been known to beaccepted by the people being watched. This makes it a very ethnically neutralsubject, and hence very hard to be explored. The only things left to beanalyzed are the proportionality of surveillance, or the methods used tosurveil, or the justification of the cause. With such concepts in mind, othersmaller but equally significant issues like autonomy, trust and privacy come upin relation to ethics.Forms of Mass SurveillanceCCTVs anddatabases are still used to monitor people today, but for the most part, masssurveillance is done on the internet. Communications are what are monitoredthese days, including the activity on our mobile devices and computers (Fuchs,p64).Phone spyingis done by geography. People in a specific area using a specific cell tower aresurveilled together. There are also some cases when the government can set upfake mobile base stations so as to listen in on all the communication ongoingin a specific area, for instance, during a riot that is likely to turn violent.Thelimitations of mass surveillance devices are virtually disappearing and thegovernment can now access more information than ever. Cell phone conversationsare saved by phone companies to be retrieved incase the government needs it.All this information comes with immense power. Even in our homes there issurveillance. The invention of smart devices enables companies to monitor ourelectricity usage, and smart cities track vehicles for miles on end usingsensors and cameras (Babcock & Freivogel, p34). The legalityof these devices has been documented, so the only thing that is left for us todebate on is their ethicality.What is the Problem of Mass Surveillance? Governmentshave tried to sugarcoat the situation by calling mass surveillance ‘bulkcollection of communications’, but however it is phrased, it is still just masssurveillance.  The problem is that mass surveillance interferes withprivacy. This point cannot be stressed enough because all surveillance devicesare bent on one goal- record it all. They are created specifically to minedata, to exploit data, to draw conclusions from this data, and to try andcreate patters from the information if provides (Babcock & Freivogel, p53).Systems are made specifically to filter out suspicious words and to determinerelationships between suspicious persons.Masssurveillance, at the very beginning, assumes that each and every person is asuspect. Slowly but surely, most of the population is eliminated from thisbracket. People are correlated on the basis of what many be nothing more than acoincidence. Visiting the same website at the same time, or going to the samerestaurant every morning for coffee- conclusions are made from the littleconnections that can be made. With the little details, patterns can be createdand the government can have a whole idea of what an individual’s life is like.By listening to what they do, what they say, what they buy, what they eat, andwhere they go, law enforcement agencies can create 100 percent accurateprofiled on people without these people ever knowing. With this kind ofinformation, there is always risk. In as much as there might be very strongguidelines put in place to protect the information from abuse, there willalways be the few cases that slip through the cracks (Babcock & Freivogel,p74). Mass surveillance therefore becomes a danger to the very people that itis meant to protect.Those who endup as victims of such abuses suffer the worst mistakes of mass surveillance asthe attacker usually has all the personal information anyone would need tocause harm. This is called the ‘chilling effect’ of surveillance. Sure, it ismeant to protect and it does protect, but generally, mass surveillance putspeople on alert. There is a difference between being watched and not beingwatched, most people are just too used to it to even notice, but take masssurveillance away and people will be freer to commit all sorts of acts- notnecessarily criminal acts, but acts nevertheless. Ultimately, we believe thatmass surveillance is there to protect us, but before we can be protected, howmuch do we have to give up? Our innovation? Our free imagination and freespeech? Do we have to succumb to conformity just to be safe? Do we have tostand something so unethical?The Ethics of Privacy, Autonomy and TrustPrivacy is animportant this to society- it makes us feel safe, makes us feel in controlagain, even if just for a while. Mass surveillance is a threat to this privacy,or at least that is what most people use to make their arguments against it.Especially at the individual level, privacy is an important thing. It is calledthe right to privacy for a reason- it is not in the place of anyone, not even thestate, to take it away from people without their consent.This right isreally a blanket policy that incorporates other minor rights within itself.There is a right to privacy of property, and there is a right to personalprivacy. This right, apart from consisting of other sub-rights, does not standon its own. The right to privacy, in this respect, ceases to be a distinctright at all. It is consisted of the right to autonomy, and other such rights.For instance, when a person disposes their diary, it is violation of theirright to pick up this diary and read it. This is a violation of the right todispose of property privately. Torturing a person so as to get certaininformation from them is a violation of their right not to be physically hurt(Baxi, McCrudden & Paliwala, p56). Yet inboth these examples, there is still a violation of privacy among other rights.The definition of the right to privacy is therefore not definite. Masssurveillance cannot violate something that is not even definitely explained inthe first. We are therefore forced to come up with our own definition of thisright so that we can survive with the idea that we are being watched andlistened to at all moments of the day.Privacy givesus some control and some dignity. As we interact with other people, a largeamount of our security and our confidence comes from our privacy. Even thoughwe know nothing about the strangers we meet each day, we feel safe with thenotion that these people don’t know anything about us. If strangers knew ourweaknesses, then they might use them against us, so we feel safe knowing thatno one knows anything about our private lives. But mass surveillance violatesthis safe zone. In mass surveillance, we are exposed to an all-seeing eye andin a way, we are made to feel as though our secrets are out in the open.But the publichas a level of dependency on the government, and in this way, it becomes okayfor the state to violate our privacy for the greater good. But the moresurveillance is used as an excuse to violate the privacy of the public, themore that people lose their sense of autonomy(Baxi, McCrudden & Paliwala,p76). Mass surveillance makes it so that we are not as confidence to speak inpublic. It entices fear because we know that any and everything we do hassevere consequences. Using mass surveillance to make sure people don’t commitany crimes is like forcing them to be good, and this just increases their needfor rebellion. So if the population becomes better because they are beingwatched, it can be argued that these actions are only pretentious, and if themass surveillance equipment is taken away, then the public will back to itstrue colors. In this way, the government is also dependent on masssurveillance, and therefore it becomes unethical in such a way that it is usedas a crutch for the state to control the behavior of its citizens.Why Surveillance?So many peoplejump straight to the impact that mass surveillance has on people- no one everreally stops to ask why surveillance is installed all around them. It is abasic assumption that surveillance is for security purposes, and while thismight be true, this question still needs to be explored is the ethicalfoundation of mass surveillance is to be determined  (Cohen, p37). Yeteven as we jump to security reasons as the obvious answer this question, thedegree of security devices around us is a bit too much. There is also thequestion of who is monitoring the footage that is recorded on all the cameras.Take the example of political insurgents- is surveilling them really going toimprove the security of the state? The first thing we need to understand isthat their more than a few forms of surveillance. This practice extends farbeyond the CCTV cameras on our streets and in our offices- mass surveillancehas roots in each and every sector of the country.But securityis not the only reason for mass surveillance. Retail stores and other companiesget information on the kinds of goods that customers buy from the informationon their loyalty cards- this is also a form of mass surveillance. Thecustomers, in exchange of some discount deals of similar promotions, gladlyparticipate in such forms of surveillance (Cohen, p57). Is this to beconsidered unethical? How can it be unethical when the shopping experience ofthese customers will be improved through their participation?Looking attransportation, especially public transit, people can now use the subway evenwith no money on them. This is as a result of the invention of smart cards.Using these cards, a person’s spending can be tracked and if they get into somemedical trouble when far away from home, the cards can be used to identify whothey are and provide their medical history. If police officers need toestablish the credibility of a suspect’s alibi, then they can simply tracktheir credit card movements and build a profile from there. These forms ofsurveillance are not only beneficial, they can sometimes be essential to thewell-being of people. This is in no way unethical.Masssurveillance can be used for individual needs as well. A financially unstablecomputer genius might decide to use their skills to hack into a credit cardcompany server and steal the numbers, hence taking other people’s money (Cohen,p81). The hacker is unethical, but the credit card company is not unethical formonitoring the spending of their customers. This makes mass surveillance bothethical and unethical- it all depends on how the issue is approached. Forpersonal reasons, people might choose to exploit the mass surveillanceequipment already in place to invade the privacy of others. These systems havea lot of personal information about many different people, and for this reason,they are sensitive. If used for good, mass surveillance can benefit millions,but is allowed into the wrong hands, then an unlucky few will suffer for it. Isit ethical, therefore, to allow the few to suffer for the well-being of themany? This brings up a whole other division of ethics that will take time andresearch to explore, but mass surveillance is not a subject to be approached inblack and white. There are issues of distribution- who gets to suffer and whogets to live if a specific instance of mass surveillance goes wrong? There isthe issue of consent. Supermarket customers have to agree to participate inpromotions that monitor their spending and the kind of goods they buy, butcriminals being investigated are denied to right to consent to privacyintrusion, and the law has no obligation to them as long as they are suspects (Cohen,p87). There is a concept of the greater good involved here, and for the fewthat have to fall victim to the dark side of mass surveillance, one millionothers get to live. Is this justified? No. but neither is it unjustified.Who is in Charge? As the partybeing watched loses autonomy and power, the surveilling party gains more powerand control. The information that most people would rather keep to themselvesis known- it is out there in the public and the chances of it circulating evenfurther are higher. There is a power imbalance between the masses and thepeople that are in charge of mass surveillance. In this context, surveillancebecomes wrong, almost like a primitive form of intimidation. It becomesunethical and very dangerous for all the parties involved. Everyone, no matterhow insignificant, is entitled to certain basic rights. These are such as theright to freely speak, the right to interact with other people, and the rightto freely protest against that which one finds distasteful. These rights arelaw and are preached to all citizens every waking day, but with masssurveillance, they become less equated to human rights and become more equatedto evidence (Pandey, p24). If there is a record of a person speaking freely foror against certain beliefs they have, then thus record can be used against themif they are ever suspected of committing a crime. People, therefore, decide tostay low and only speak in the shadows, for the state holds all the power.When it comesto a point when a person’s rights are no longer their own, then masssurveillance is considered to have crossed the ethical line. The simplestdemocratic practices are hindered by cameras and such monitoring devices. Whatis the point of giving away privileges only to use them against the very peoplethat are supposed to be protected by these privileges?There is alsothe question of distance. The surveilling team is literally on the other sideof the screen- adding to the power imbalance between the authorities and themasses (Pandey, p32). This gives a sense of two very different parties whereone in pulling the strings and the other party has to adhere to all the rulesor there will be consequences. People are spied upon, denied basic rights, andmade to feel powerless. In this way, mass surveillance becomes unethical, eventhough it is used to protect these very people.Nothing to HideThere is afamous statement, “if you haven’t done anything wrong, then there is nothing tofear.” This statement has long been used to justify the ethics of surveillance.If the public has nothing to hide, then they have nothing to fear even if thegovernment pricks and probes at the most private details of their lives.Looking at it carefully, however, it does make sense. Majority of the people haveno criminal records, nor do they have any intention of committing any crimes inthe future. In this sense, mass surveillance does not affect them in any way.Surveillance is only meant to catch the bad few and make the lives of otherssafer in the process. In this reasoning, the government has installed cameras,wiretaps, and record checks almost everywhere. Citizens are convinced that allthis effort is for their own good, and once the terrorists have beeneliminated, it will have been worth it. But the bad guys never quit, and everywaking morning, the government finds new ways to get more information- both inquantity and in depth. It is true that mass surveillance makes it safer for themajority, but this does not make it ethical (Bishop, Miloslavskaya &Theocharidou,  p51).If thegovernment mandated every citizen to walk around with a tracking device in aneffort to advance mass surveillance, then it would make sense that anyone whorefused to do so has something to hide and should be investigated further. Butit can also be argued that such measures are simply wrong and in violation ofmost forms of privacy. So if most people refuse to willingly submit to the willof government and give themselves up to be examined, then it does notnecessarily mean that these people are criminals, it just means that they valuetheir privacy more than their security- or something like that.Yet, with themodern advancements in technology, the government can already track people evenwhen they are not carrying any tracking devices on them. People can be trackedusing their credit card actions, or using cameras that are lodged on everystreet corner(Bishop, Miloslavskaya & Theocharidou,  p74). Thesemovements, however, can only be tracked to a certain extent. In this way, aperson is able to be kept safe and they are also able to maintain theirprivacy. Yet this is not any better that if the government forcefullyimplemented a law that mandated everyone to carry around a tracking device.Both actions are invasive, and thus both actions are wrong, and just becauseone is more invasive than the other does not make the latter action any lessunethical.There is alsothe issue of storage. After the information has been collected from the public,it is stored in archives that are vulnerable to hackers. There are peoplecapable of accessing this information and using it to harm and not to protect.This puts the whole argument against the use of mass surveillance to watch thepublic. For instance, back in 2007, a worker from the Department of Commerce,Benjamin Robinson, accessed a government database and used the informationwithin it to track the movements of his former girlfriend. He accessed thissystem at least 163 times before he was discovered, an if it had continued forany longer, then the girl that was being tracked could have ended up in realdanger (Bishop, Miloslavskaya & Theocharidou,  p85). This man wasunethical in his actions, but so was the government for collecting personalinformation and storing it in such a way that it could be accessed more than100 times before any red flags were raised.When to use Mass SurveillanceSo whenexactly is mass surveillance ethical? Would it be ethical when we are invadedand it is the only way that the invaders can be flushed out? Would it beethical if the data collected in the devices is not used against the peoplethat are supposed to be protected by the surveillance systems? There are linesthat should not be crossed, the only problem is that these lines are not clear.According to M.I.T. Professor Gary Marx, there are a number of questions thatneed to be answered before mass surveillance can be implemented anywhere.MeansThe firstissue that needs to be explored is the means of mass surveillance being used.Does it cause any sort of harm to the public, be it physical or psychological?Does the surveillance method have boundaries? The technique used should not beallowed to cross a certain line without consent of the party being surveilled.The techniques being used also needs to be trustworthy. The personalinformation of the people being surveilled should be kept safe and it shouldnot be used against them. Is the method invasive to personal relationships?Lastly, the means used to enforce mass surveillance needs to produce results asthey were- the results should be valid and not doctored in any way (Berleur& Whitehouse. P42).ContextThe secondissue that has to be explored to justify mass surveillance is that of datacollection context. Those being surveilled need to be aware that personalinformation is being collected on them, and they need to know who is collectingthis information and why they are collecting it. These individuals need toagree to be surveilled- consent is a key issue. And then comes the golden rule-those that are responsible to setting up and implementing surveillance alsoneed to be its subjects. In short, everyone, even government officials, need toagree to the same conditions that everyone else agrees to. Mass surveillanceshould indeed look out for the masses- no exceptions. For it to be ethicallyjustifiable at all, then a certain principle of minimization needs to beenforced.Masssurveillance also has to be decided by the public. To come to the decision ofsetting up surveillance, a discussion has to be held publicly and people haveto decide for or against it. If they decide to go through with it, then thereneeds to be a human review of the machines and the equipment that are to beused. The people that decide to be surveilled are also entitled to inspect theresults of this surveillance and question how the results were created and howthey are going to be used. They also have a right to challenge the records incase any obvious errors are made with the surveillance results (Berleur &Whitehouse. P62).Before masssurveillance can be allowed to function in society, then there needs to be ameans of redress. In case any individual is treated unjustly because ofsurveillance, then there should be appropriate punishments in place for theperpetrator of the crime so as to phase out unethical surveillance behavior.The data collected needs to be protected adequately so as to avoid anyunethical use of this information in the first place. Mass surveillance methodsneed to have very minimal negative effects, or preferable, no negative effectsat all. Lastly, mass surveillance needs to be equal. The same methods used onthe middle class need to be used on the upper class, and is there is a way ofresisting mass surveillance, then the government needs to make sure that thesemethods are available to the privileged as well as to the less privileged(Berleur & Whitehouse. P69). If even one person can escape masssurveillance, then all the other members of the public have no business beingwatched by the government.UsesThe finalissue that has to be analyzed is that of the uses of the data that is collectedfrom mass surveillance devices. Surveillance needs to have a certain goal-whether it is to improve the shopping experience of customers, or to reducecrime rate. The data collected needs to be useful in fulfilling this goal,otherwise, there is no point. In as much as the goal needs to be fulfilled,there also needs to be a perfect balance between fulfilling this goal andspending just the right amount of money- not too much for it to be wasteful,and not too little for the surveillance to bear worthless results. Beforesurveillance is implemented, the responsible party needs to make sure there isno other means that will cost less money and fulfill the same duties (Berleur& Whitehouse. P87). If it is too costly, then are there any consequences ofnot installing surveillance equipment, and if so, to what extent will theseconsequences affect society? How can the cost and the risk be minimized? Theinformation collected needs to be used only for its intended purposes only andnothing more.Therefore,mass surveillance can be ethical, but it also has a large capacity to beunethical. Following this guideline, mass surveillance should be installed withno problems and with no major violations of any kind. However this issue isapproached, there will always be a basic violation of privacy that isassociated with surveillance, but the damage is controllable as long as thepublic consents to it. there needs to be appropriate measures and guidelinesput in place before using any form of mass surveillance on a population, andthese guidelines need to be adhered to by all the involved parties- be it theparty surveilling, or the party being surveilled.How do we make Surveillance Ethical?There is a lotof fuss about mass surveillance. We should never stop discussing the underlyingissues on mass surveillance, but we should also give the government a chance toprove that mass surveillance is truly for the good of the public and not justsome scheme to keep citizens in check. Mass surveillance attempts to do theimpossible- keep people safe while also maintaining an open and free societywith people who are not afraid to express their views. Amidst all these issues,the question of how to make mass surveillance more ethical is often overlooked,but there is truly a way in which we can make sure that mass surveillance isjustified and only in the best interest of the masses.For masssurveillance to be ethical, there needs to be a reason for it. Secretivelyspying on people without them knowing why or how is why surveillance isconsidered unethical, but approaching these people from a logical standpointand explaining to them why mass surveillance is necessary is in every wayethical (Duquenoy, Jones & Blundell, p38).Forsurveillance to be ethical, there also needs to be transparency. This meansthat there should be integrity of motive- no secret agendas. Right from the waythe data is collected to the way it is handled and used, there needs tocomplete honesty between the parties involved.The methodsused need to be analyzed for proportionality, there must be laws put in placeto protect the interests of those being surveilled, and lastly, there needs tobe a clear prospect for success if mass surveillance is to be carried on for along period of time (Duquenoy, Jones & Blundell, p78).ConclusionSo, is masssurveillance unethical? Yes it is, and no, it is not. This is one of thoseissues that has to be examined in context. If a criminal hacks into thesurveillance system of a particular government and uses it to commit a majorcrime, then this criminal is wrong, but this still does not make masssurveillance unethical. The justification and ethicality of mass surveillanceare often treated as one subject, and in as much as they may overlap, they arequite different. For instance, it is justified for a government to put upcameras to protect the many while they focus on the few bad apples that arelikely to commit crimes, but it is unethical that this same government isintruding the privacy of so many people just to catch a few criminals. In thesame way, it is unethical to listen in on a cell phone conversation of asuspect in a criminal investigation, but if this person ends up being convictedbecause of the conversation, then it becomes justified, and to some extent,also ethical.If we go backto the basics, parents have to monitor their children in order for theseinfants to survive. In this context, the infants are viewed as powerless,helpless, and in need of constant care and attention. It is therefore theparent’s responsibility, both ethically and morally, to be there for theirchild. After these children grow, they become independent and are no longer inneed of constant attention. These children start to pull away from theirparents and seek out their own privacy. The same knowledge can be applied tothe issue of mass surveillance. The public can be seen as children who havegrown over time and earned the right to their own privacy, and yet thegovernment persists on monitoring them constantly (Cohen, p85). In the publicconsents to this surveillance, then it becomes ethically justifiable for masssurveillance to continue, but without the public’s consent to surveillance,then it becomes wrong and an intrusion of privacy.Work citedCropf, RobertA, Robert A Cropf, and Timothy C Bagwell. Ethical Issues And Citizen Rights InThe Era Of Digital Government Surveillance. 1st ed. Print.Cohen,E. Mass Surveillance And State Control. 1st ed. [Place ofpublication not identified]: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Print.Gamino Garcia,Arkaitz et al. Mass Surveillanc