Expressing Opinions

There is more information being gathered about you than you think. Do you have privacy concerns? I know most people will say they do not have anything to hide, but do want all of your personal information to be out there? Ladies do you want that creepy guy at work or someone you met to be able to locate where you live?

In a CNET News article on security: The Internet–a private eye’s best friend

“Dominos has built the biggest consumer database in America,” and the U.S. Marshall’s Service, the New York Police Department and collection agencies are using it to track people down, Rambam said.

Marketing databases with vast amounts of personal records are being purchased by the government, he said. At the same time, individuals have less power to learn what information is being gathered on them and how it is being used, because private entities are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, he added.

And marketing databases will sell this information to anyone who has the money to pay for the service.
I don’t have anything to hide, but I also enjoy a certain amount of privacy. I pay cash, do not participate in customer surveys or give out my phone number when asked by a cashier, this is just a few things I do to lower my digital footprint.

Any time a person asks you for information you should be suspicious. No I am not paranoid, just aware and sometimes suspicious. I believe my digital footprint should be worth something and until they start paying me for it I am going to leave as little info as I can behind for them to use.

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Most people if asked would tell you they don’t care if their Internet Service Provider tracked what they did on the Internet, because they do not do anything illegal. What they often do not think of when making this statement, is what someone would do with the information they gain by tracking their activity and what would then happen to the information.

The BBC interviewed Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the person who invented the World Wide Web in 1989. In the interview he stated something most people would not think of and I find to be a very good example of why you do not want your ISP or any other entity tracking what you do.

This is what Sir Tim said,

“I want to know if I look up a whole lot of books about some form of cancer that that’s not going to get to my insurance company and I’m going to find my insurance premium is going to go up by 5% because they’ve figured I’m looking at those books.”

For those of you who do not care maybe this will provide a reason to rethink your position. How many of you have researched information on a subject which is legal, but very private and/or personal? Would you have done so if you knew you every word you typed and every link you clicked on was being stored and used for other purposes?

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Do you know what a national security letter is? National security letters outlined in the USA Patriot Act, are administrative subpoenas. These letters allow the FBI to force telephone companies, Internet service providers, banks, credit bureaus and other businesses to turn over highly personal records about their customers without a judge’s approval.

This also includes forcing librarians to turn over the records they have about the books you checked out from the library and librarians are against it. They are so much against this act the ALA has published on it’s site the Resolution on the Use and Abuse of National Security Letters/On the Need for Legislative Reforms to Assure the Right to Read Free of Government Surveillance, along with other Patriot Act Resources.

Today more FBI privacy violations have been confirmed. No big surprise here. The Associated Press is reporting:

Testifying at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Mueller raised the issue of the FBI’s controversial use of so-called national security letters in reference to an upcoming report on the topic by the Justice Department’s inspector general.

An audit by the inspector general last year found the FBI demanded personal records without official authorization or otherwise collected more data than allowed in dozens of cases between 2003 and 2005. Additionally, last year’s audit found that the FBI had underreported to Congress how many national security letters were requested by more than 4,600.

Many people will respond by saying they have done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide, so what is the big deal. Due process, privacy and Constitutional rights are the big deal. It is a big part of what democracy is all about. And that piece of sh*t Bush does not care about your rights, democracy, or the Constitution.

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