I thought about this a few years back, and am going to have a lot to say in this post, but i hope you will all stick with me.
Since the first time it occurred to me i have wondered how long it would take the government to make overtures toward phasing in a cashless society. The benefits to our government would be dramatic. Say all of our money is virtual, your entire economic worth tied to your identity. If you had a warrant for your arrest, you would be unable to buy food, or anything else. Taxation could then be done in the dark. I mean, streamlined for efficiency. Hahaha. the irs would not need us to fill out forms, every penny we would ever make already known. No more anonymity period. Not even the illusion of anonymity we currently enjoy.
As was mentioned, we already carry an identity broadcaster, with gps tracking right in our pockets. We drive new cars with embedded gps, anonymity is already gone, except for those willing to go full ham after it, and even then, when you go to purchase that burner phone, you will be caught on a security camera, probably more than one.
Increasingly people seem to view a person wanting privacy as probable cause for suspicion. It is those subtle skews in popular perspective which give me pause. So far, between the wars on concepts and substances, and the media being used as a pry bar to divide the people, combined with some of the legislations of the past 20 years or so, patriot act, additions to the ndaa in 2012, passed in such sneaky circumstances, at night, on New Years, in media silence. The 2013 additions to the NDRPP make it look even more like a primer, and points a very pointy finger at why the gov does not have love for the family farmer. Corporate farms are good, people growing their own food...not so much. Family farmers are feeling a pressure, hot epa breath on their necks. They are starting to feel like they are being treated like a threat.
Suddenly, it makes sense to say, "let's pass laws without reading them for a change" because "fog of war" is a thing. Now that we have the "pass, then read" precedent, who is to say what the next unstoppable monstrosity will be to get the same treatment. It is like a "grab bag" never know what you are gonna get 'til it is the law of the land, except for the ruling elite who called "not it!" and held their index fingers on the tips of their noses while they voted, so they do not have to be subject to their own decrees. We have no problem with any of this. really?
Right now some public servants are bitching about not being able to decrypt peoples cellphones without having to go through all kinds of bs like getting a court order and proving they have a legal right to that data. I mean how can they be reasonably expected to wholesale spy on everyone under such conditions?! *stomps feet
terrorism! Drugs! We are at war here, civil rights are for peacetime.
I wonder how many drugs have been killed in that war against them? Bet it is mostly people dying, huh? But people who do not matter, because they made the choice to do drugs. Probably because they have emotional problems, and failing to cope they errantly sought to feel better without a prescription for an approved substance. Of course, some of them do have a prescription, and are using an approved substance in the wrong way. But, yeah, they don't matter, and it does not matter that the war on drugs is really a war on people who use drugs. They are wrecking their lives any way, and will probably steal and stuff, too.
The war on terror is funny too. I hope we kill both terror, and terrorism, as concepts, they are better off dead.
Here is our fly in the ointment. Say you piss off the wrong person. They can turn the entire US on you. They can write love letters to bin ladin from your email account. They can write your terrorist manifesto on you @ you dot com. Who is gonna say it is not you threatening to blow up all the infidels? You? You're a terrorist! No one is gonna believe you. You got nothin, because terrorists friends and families always act astounded and say "oh no, You would never be a terrorist!" How would any of us be able to defend against such a thing? when the bag of flour in your pantry can easily be described as, "several POUNDS of a suspicious white powder" by an adorable newscaster, looking frightened, concerned, and soooo sincere, all of us could be the you in this scenario, and we are wise to hold skepticism as a tool for survival.
it would be great to believe that it could never happen, but it can. I have had my email account accessed without permission by a person with malicious intentions. Luckily it was not to turn me into a virtual traitor, it was just to discredit me, and probably mostly just to mess with me. Kind of a prank, but not the kind friends pull. the kind creepy people with too much free time, and an axe to grind pull.
They turned me into a virtual hooker, clipping bits I wrote about myself in an old myspace profile, and using the magic of a keylogger, were able to post hooker profiles on a large number of sites from my very own email, with photos pulled from my own online photo albums. (No nakeds, or even dirty pics, as there are none, but they used my first and last name on every damned one of nearly a dozen sites)
I have managed to get most of them removed, but one site refuses to pull down the profile without a court order. They said it drives traffic, and I was thinking, that sounds like too much effort, plus, i was kinda flattered, so I let it go. lol. Not often I get to drive traffic for an online pimp. No one can contact me from the profile, so, there is that, but this lie is out there forever. It is funny now but at the time, it was horrifying. I still do not know who did that to me, but I hope they fall down several flights of concrete stairs.
Long and windy, but there are some reasonable points, things we might want to be aware of, don't you think? I am nobody special, stuff like this and much worse, can be done to anyone. Oh, that dorkwad also sent some crazy emails to significant clients, in what I took to be an attack on my agency. For a few months, I walked around feeling sick to my stomach, jumping at shadows. I felt so violated, and had no idea if the person had broken into my house to install a key logger, or what. The feeling of vulnerability has lost its edge, but remains real to me, in light of this.
well, congratulations to anyone who made it to the end of my many thoughts on privacy in the digital age. Available as an audio book on itunes. Not really, i am just very accustomed to writing, and can bust out a feature length article almost accidentally. I can't truthfully call it a curse, it has been a gift. To me. Maybe not everyone else lol.
LB loves to throw the word idiot around. Just expect it when you wake up tomorrow.
: A troll without integrity is like a politician that doesn't care what his constituents think. I made that up. In other words, not giving a sh!t about what makes sense, or not, or worried about the state of human kind, much less America. Good on ya!
lolz just posted this in his FB page. Interesting.