Opener: "We must draw the line somewhere and define what is private; No one would feel comfortable going to a public place and giving out their username and passwords to total strangers. They should not be required to do so at work, at school, or while trying to obtain work or an education. This is a matter of personal privacy and makes sense in our digital world.” (Eliot Engel)
This is one example of how Privacy is undervalued and therefore needs to be valued more in order to protect personal security.
I Stand resolved that: Privacy is undervalued.
Let me first give you some important definitions of:
• privacy: freedom from unauthorized intrusion, one’s right to privacy (Merriam-Webster)
In this round my value is personal well-being
The definition of well-being is the state of being happy, healthy, or prosperous (MW) the definition of Personal is of, relating to, or affecting a particular individual (MW)
My value criterion by which is what we use to achieve our value is of Personal Security–which is defined as: the legal and uninterrupted enjoyment by a person of his life, his body, his health and his reputation. (Webster’s online dictionary)
How does this impact you, our judge?
When privacy is undervalued, it makes us (you and me) vulnerable (or open) to invasions of our personal privacy (such as employers requesting personal passwords to social networks or private email. Now our personal security is at risk. Our employers may have access to passwords or information that can lead to access of bank accounts or personal financial details. Think about how many times we forget passwords and those password reset emails are sent to your email. That information would be available to anyone who had access to email passwords. So now we have a personal security risk, which means you and I may be harmed financially, physically, emotionally, verbally or in our reputation thus ultimately impacting our personal well-being.
Therefore, it is of paramount importance to do all we can to promote and protect our personal security, because our quality of life and personal happiness greatly depends on our physical, emotional, and financial health. Protection of our reputation is also important to our well-being.

• C-1 Lack of Privacy harms financial and personal security.
• C-2 Lack of personal security harms person well-being.
• C-3 Personal well-being is important to our pursuit of happiness.
C-1 Lack of Privacy harms financial and personal security.
One aspect of personal well-being is financial security, the ability to support ourselves and our families. An example of invasion of privacy that can harm financial security is seen when employers request their employee’s, personal passwords to check content. This has in the past and can lead to employees being fired or not being hired, therefore impacting financial security.
On Aug 2nd, 2012, Illinois Becomes Third State to Prohibit Employers from Demanding Facebook Information:
Don’t say unless asked to. (Illinois Governor Pat Quinn has signed a bill that will prohibit employers from seeking the social network usernames and passwords of others. The Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act takes effect on January 1, 2013, and will result in Illinois joining Maryland and Delaware as the third state that protects the social network privacy of employees and job applicants. (Aug. 2, 2012))
That means there are another 47 states out there that have not addressed this issue.
The First Amendment gives us as individuals the right to freedom of speech. This should protect even our content on private Facebook pages or any social networking.
C-2 Lack of personal security harms person well-being.
“Workers of the world are exposed to many types of privacy-invasive monitoring while earning a living. These include drug testing, closed-circuit video monitoring, Internet monitoring and filtering, E-mail monitoring, instant message monitoring, phone monitoring, location monitoring, personality and psychological testing, and keystroke logging. These activities may diminish employee morale and dignity, and increase worker stress.” Workplace Privacy (Electronic Privacy Information Center)
Diminishing employee morale and dignity not only impacts the performance of the employee, it also impacts the employer in terms of productivity of the individual but the also the company. Increased stress causes increasing health risks, heart disease, strokes and other stress related illnesses. This does not benefit the company or employee.
C-3 Personal well-being is important to our pursuit of happiness.
The Declaration of Independence states that: Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness are unalienable Rights.
If our personal well-being is impacted or affected by the harms that result from our lack of privacy in the workplace, it also impacts our pursuit of happiness. Since this is a fundamental right, it is important to go back to the issue that threatens that in the first place. We must be aware and hold accountable organizations that threaten privacy for individuals and businesses. We must value privacy to the extent that it protects our personal security, and promotes personal well-being.
Technology has greatly increased employers’ ability to monitor employees both at work and outside of work. At the same time, technologies like smart phones and social networking sites have blurred the lines between business and personal, public and private. (Electronic Privacy Information Center)
The Social Networking Online Protection Act that was introduced in April of 2012 is still in committee. The GovTrack.us website that tracks these bills estimates it has a 1\% chance of being enacted. This proves that privacy continues to be undervalued.
I stand resolved that privacy is undervalued.