Privacy And The Government

The government always performs surveillance on us and while they participated in information collection and processing, they were unwilling to participate in (truthful) information spreading unless it benefited them. Since the government's actions directly impact and affect us, we need to have more of a say in their methods and decisions. We need voice our concerns and make sure that the government works in ways we view as ethical and just. If not, the government will be able to do as they please. We see this in the movie, as the government makes a decision that will likely raise taxes for the nation, arrest people for telling the truth to the public, and withholds information from the public.

Internal Revenue Service Records

The government sent rockets into space to destroy the comet and created drones to mine the comet for valuables. It is implied that this caused the disposable income taxes of Americans to increase since these creations require significant funding, and that thousands of households suffered as a result of these taxes [1]. The IRS definitely received more money than usual due to these creations.

FBI National Crime Information Center 2000

After Dibiasky and Mindy released information in spite of the government’s warnings, they were arrested by the FBI along with their associate, Dr. Ogelthorpe. They were likely entered in the NCIC (FBI National Crime Information Center 2000). The NCIC includes information about various kinds of criminals/wanted individuals nationwide [2].

OneDOJ Database

The OneDOJ Database has information on individuals that the NCIC does not, such as interrogation details [2]. It is likely that when the astronomers were arrested by the FBI and interrogated, the details of the interrogations were noted by the OneDOJ Database.

License-Plate Scanners

When Dibiasky, Mindy, and Ogelthorpe were found and arrested by the FBI, the government might have used license-plate scanners to find them. There is no proof that they did this. This is merely speculation.

Freedom of Information Act

The Freedom of Information Act was created to make sure citizens could know the important information that the government has access to, provided that it made sense for the public to know the information [2]. The government had records that proved the comet would hit and wipe out all life, yet this information was still hidden from the public.

1. Aziz O., Gibbons M., Ball, C., Gorman., E., "The effect on household income of government taxation and expenditure in 1988, 1998, 2007 and 2010" (Policy Quarterly, February 1 2012), ojs.victoria.ac.nz/pq/article/view/4411 (May 3 2023)

2. Michael J. Quinn, Ethics for the Information Age, (Pearson, September 15 2020), p.457-510