Lance Corporal Justin Ellsworth

651 Words3 Pages
Should Lance Corporal Justin Ellsworth’s parents been given access to his email? I don’t believe they should have, simply due to preserving his privacy. Privacy can mean many things from the right to be left alone to the right to have some control over how an individual’s personal or health information is properly collected, stored, used or released. This is a reasonable expectation that Lance Corporal Ellsworth could have assumed when he signed up for his email account with Yahoo. Within our email accounts, we conceive a place where we can have our personal space, keep private documents and keep our innermost feelings typed in our privacy. It is certain that Lance Corporal Ellsworth’s parents had genuine interests when they challenged Yahoo’s privacy agreement and obtained a court order to disclose his emails after his death. However, in his parent’s pursuit to obtain Lance Corporal Ellsworth’s last thoughts, they could have unveiled a personal life that would have changed their judgment of him. This and other utilitarian and deontological moral ethics should be considered when confronted with the decision to invade an individual’s privacy. In the utilitarian concept of ethics, an action is good if it creates more contentment than grief for the greater good. If Yahoo had given Lance Corporal Ellsworth’s parents his account password, which would have been virtuous only for them and created a blissful impression for them only. This action is contrary to the utilitarian theory since it did not create happiness for the greater public. Additionally, did his parents consider the possible effects of reading his private emails? In their quest of understanding his last thoughts, they may have discovered information that could have changed their opinion of the way the last remembered him. Lastly, the judge did not consider the consequences of his actions by

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