On 08/20/2013 10:23 AM, Ski Kacoroski wrote:
Hi,
Just wondering what people think about Pamela's thoughts on privacy
and shutting down Groklaw?
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20130818120421175
I have known implicitly for years that pretty much anything I do (on
or off the internet) can be and probably is being tracked so I do not
have much expectations of privacy anymore. What has changed for me is
the more overt way the governments are using this knowledge. Perhaps
it was always like this and I never noticed.
What are your thoughts?
cheers,
ski
The fact of the matter is that this is a generation of complacent
people. It seems that people in general, have taken an incorrect view
of privacy. Many view privacy from the view of doing something
illegal. When talking to colleagues about the threat to our privacy,
the general view is ," I'm not doing anything illegal, so I don't have
anything to worry about." This view is wrong. What can large
corporations do with all of that data? What can governments do with all
of that data? Besides outlining your entire internet life to build a
case against you out of it, they can outright sell it to the highest
bidder. Even worse, it only takes one rogue person to aggregate and
sell it also. Think about it. All of your communications data... Your
emails, chat history, web history, telehone conversations, TV viewing
habits, smartphone GPS coordinates every minute, your smartphone camera,
and microphone conversations, your skype video calls, your android
facial recognition, etc. At a couple of keystrokes, government
officials can REPLAY your life including every step that you make, and
everything that you said. But most people accept the fact that they
are, in real time gathering this. Citizens are now nothing more than
pets under glass and happily accept it or are disaffected by it..
It's funny, one common form of torture is to make a person strip.
It's demoralizing, since it makes you feel helpless since eyes are
constantly scrutinizing you. Privacy is a protection. Privacy is also
power. It shouldn't be compromised.
Now who would benefit from all of this surveillance? Top government
officials for one. You can direct that department to handover the life
of any citizen to you for any reason. That is absolute power. It
squashes dissent. If you personally know that you're being watched. The
less likely that you would voice your opinion. Another beneficiary of
Citizen communications surveillance is the large corporations. If they
are a large internet company or communications corporation, they can
sell that data( your locations, viewing habits, conversation metadata,
including keywords if what you're interested in, etc) to marketers.
If you're bidding on that data, you target and bombard those said
citizens with targeted ads, phonecalls, etc. And lastly, a rogue person
within the NSA or government contractor can copy and sell your
passwords, social security number, timestamps on your whereabouts, etc.
to the highest bidder. The possibilities are endless. If you ask me,
the real threat to national security is the NSA. All in all, I agree
with Pamela's thoughts. Why have an operation such as Groklaw online,
when the very people contributing are in danger privacywise?
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