Less Privacy is Good for Us (and You): Question 1

Etzioni believes that violating privacy for the common good of public health and safety is a "justifiable diminution of privacy". He uses the HIV testing of infants and people hired to work in child care centers or schools as examples for this common good he refers to. I agree that both of these situations can be justified to violate privacy. If mothers are tested for HIV in the delivery room the rate of HIV in infants would drop. "Two-thirds of infected mothers are unaware" so if they're tested, they can become aware and save their babies. When told of their situation, as long as mothers do not breastfeed and give their babies AZT, the probability of the infant getting HIV is lowered immediately. Right now, people hired to work in schools or day cares cannot be properly background checked to keep out child abusers and sex offenders because criminals use false identification and aliases. Using something called biometrics, a method for recognizing humans based on fingerprints, facial scans, eye-scanning, etc, people can have their background checks connected to their physical characteristics that cannot be changed, therefore they wont be able to cheat the system. Our children will be safer and parents will be at ease knowing that the people they are leaving their kids with are safe and will not harm them.