Public Safety and Privacy Essay Example for Free

customary preventive and Privacy EssayAbstract After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the U.S. constantly tries to find the correct balance between covert and humankindkind safety. computed tomography incision of Public Safety v. John vigor has revealed the important implications of commonplace safety towards concealing in the United States. entre The terrorist acts of 9/11 have revealed serious inconsistencies between universe safety and privateness in the sonorous system of the United States. Numerous laws, well-grounded norms, and lordly court of law decisions have only increased the maturation tension between the two archetypes of macrocosm safety and secrecy. The natural severalizes desire to cherish its citizens from terrorist threats has evidently neglected the importance of st adequate balance between public safety and privacy. As a result, the conjure evokenot effectively promote both levelheaded values and has to sacrifice one legal notion for the stake of protecting the other. Connecticut v. Doe summary of the object lessonAmong other things, Connecticuts Megans Law requires persons convicted of devolve onual offences to cash register with the Department of Public Safety (DPS) upon their release into the residential district, and requires DPS to post a get off wrongdoer registry containing registrants names, addresses, photographs, and descriptions on an Internet website and to make the registry available to the public in certain state offices. ( peremptory coquette of the United States, 2002)In the case of Connecticut Department of Public Safety v. Doe, the dogmatic Court of the United States has actually overturned the reads of the lower district courts, which prescribed Connecticut Department of Public Safety to shut down its official website, which presented the visitors with the information about convicted sex offenders, and to prevent public access to printed information about sex offenders. The lower courts concluded that spreading information about sex offenders and reservation it public initially implicated the liberty interests of those who could be draw potential registrants of the discussed website (Supreme Court of the United States, 2002). Supreme Court of the United States has completely disagreed with the previous decisions of the lower courts. John Doe was trying to defend his aim by stating that he was not unreliable during the time when he was registered at the website. However, the Supreme Court has come to conclusion that regardless the danger sex offenders actually presented, they had to be registered.Objectively, it does not matter whether the sex offender is dangerous or not. Connecticuts Megans Law does not refer to both particular proposition level of danger, according to which sex offenders should or should not be registered at Connecticuts DPS website. It was adequate for the U.S. Supreme Court to state that sex offenders were given an opportunity to contest t heir guilt during the sex offense court proceedings. Regardless the danger sex offenders represent, they must be registered at Connecticut DPS website, and to make their ain information publicly accessible. Connecticut v. Doe implications The discussed case has generated acute public response. Beyond that, the case has carried profound implications for the social policies in the public safety area in the United States. To start with, Connecticuts Megans Law applies, with a few exceptions, to persons convicted after October 1, 1988 of criminal offenses against a minor, violent and nonviolent cozy offenses, and felonies committed for a sexual purpose (Brooks, 1996).When sex offenders are released and enter the community, they are obliged to register with the sex offenders informational registry riseed by Connecticut Department of Public Safety. Certainly, this is an effective measure of providing the community with the objective information its potential dangerous members. Simultan eously, sex offenders are not deprived of traditional personalized and privacy rights. As a result, Connecticuts Megans Law finds disruption the discussed privacy rights of those who has already been convicted and released from jail. With the desire to promote public safety, the U.S. has proved that such cannot exist in line with the privacy rights of those who can easily breach public safety again. Connecticut v. Doe has pushed the importance of public safety to the foreground, making it more important than privacy rights of sex offenders. The case has directly implied that social policies in the area of public safety require better focus on privacy rights. It is interesting to note, that in his justification of the Supreme Courts decision, Justice Scalia compared Connecticuts Megans Law with the law which prohibited everyone downstairs age of 16 to drive a motor vehicle that is why, a convicted sex offender has no more right to additional process enabling him to establish th at he is not dangerous than a 15-year-old has a right to process enabling him to establish that he is a safe driver (Supreme Court of the United States, 2002).Having drawn this analogy, the Justice has actually left no hope for the privacy rights defenders to protect privacy against public safety. The case has proven that the U.S. public safety policies lack profound understanding of what constitutes substantial risk to public safety and what factors could shrive the breach of privacy rights. Public safety remains the preliminary care within the contemporary American legal system. The U.S. nationalist Act has become the culmination of the U.S. fight for public constancy, safety, and peace. In the light of constant terrorist threats privacy rights seem to lose their relevance and turn into secondary legal elements.Although it is difficult to compare and equal terrorism to sex offense, sex offenders still create one of the study criminal dangers in the society, taking into account the extremely high level of recidivism among them (Inbau, 1999). There is no set about that a convicted and released sex offender would not commit another crime of sexual character. This is why the state makes it possible to justify the emphasis on public safety for the account of privacy rights. In reality, the discussed case creates some generalizations about the state of public safety policies in the United States. On the one hand, the U.S. Patriot Act and legal enforcement agencies promote the importance and prevalence of public safety principles over the privacy rights. On the other hand, several organizations promote the importance of preliminary research before privacy rights are breached for the sake of public safety.Development and implementation of social policies should be based on research whenever possible. It should be far-famed that to date, few research studies about community notification have been conducted. The research that has been completed has not been able to conclude that community notification reduces recidivism or enhances community safety. (Solove, 2003)However, even when we lack scientific information which could justify community notification and privacy breach to protect public safety, the society has not yet invented more effective means of eliminating public safety threats. Sex offenders and terrorists equally represent serious threats to peace and stability in the society. This is why society invents numerous measures to protect itself from the safety threats and to release itself from the safety pressures.It seems that the U.S. will but be able to produce any relevant balance between privacy and public safety. The Supreme Court of the United States constantly confirms the real state of legal affairs in the state privacy means less when it comes to protecting the public safety of the American nation, although we forget that the American nation is do of separate privacy rights and issues which also require protection. It i s stated that public safety can be intensify and limited resources used more efficiently, when, the most aggressive notification practices should be reserved for those offenders who are at highest risk to reoffend and therefore require the most intensive interventions (Brooks, 1996). However, we must be objective and realistic. When proponents of privacy rights speak their desire to utilize sound evaluation procedures, and to protect privacy rights of those who are no longer dangerous to the society, they frequently forget that the American legal system lacks such evaluation models.Public notification has been invented to urge the control of public safety and to introduce the timely corrective measures. From the viewpoint of the current legal role in the United States, the American nation ultimately has to decide what should be more important privacy rights or public safety. Connecticut v. Doe implies that the country which has gone through terrorist attacks similar to 9/11, can not any longer neglect the importance of public safety, even when it initially breaches legal privacy principles. In order to justify breaching of privacy rights, the state should develop a set of legal criteria, which will help examine whether a person or an action represents serious threat to public safety. In contemporary legal environment, the American society has not yet produced any other legal alternatives besides community notification. Specialists and human rights proponents may argue that the U.S. laws completely neglect the importance of personal privacy but Connecticut v. Doe implies that when privacy threatens the whole society it can no longer be relevant. Conclusion From the legal viewpoint, Connecticut v. Doe has finally clarified the official states viewpoint on the importance of privacy rights vs. public safety. The U.S. Supreme Courts decision has underlined the importance of public safety and the prevalence of public safety principles over privacy rights. Legal professionals still fail to find a correct and justify balance between public safety and privacy rights.This is why it would be more appropriate to develop legal criteria for the assessment of risks a person or an action may produce against the states public safety. Of course, community notification about sex offenders can create vigilantism (Solove, 2003). As a result, the state requires thorough re-consideration of all legal and law enforcement practices which are aimed at protecting public safety, and which risk breaking privacy rights.ReferencesBrooks, A. (1996). Megans Law Constitutionality and policy. Criminal Justice Ethics, 15,99-101.Inbau, F.E. (1999). Public safety v. individual civil liberties the prosecuting attorneys stand. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 29, 129-134.Solove, D.J. (2003). The virtues of knowing less justifying privacy protections againstdisclosure. Duke Law Journal, 53, 6-15.Supreme Court of the United States. (2002). Connecticut Department of Public Safety et al v. Doe, individually and on behalf of all others alike situated. Retrieved March 8, 2008 from