Privacy. What Privacy? You Have None

Warrantless Searches

Cell Phones:
January 2011: "The California Supreme Court Said: Police Can Search Cell Phone without a Warrant"

Monday October 3, 2011: "The U.S. Supreme Court turns away appeal on cell phone search".

Now a couple of other states are beginning to allow police to search cell phones after someone's arrested. Could routine traffic stops be far behind?



E-Mail:
As the future of mobile and home computers moves towards "the Cloud", "Aging ‘Privacy’ Law Leaves Cloud E-Mail Open to Cops.""ECPA allows the government to obtain, without a warrant, any content stored in the cloud... "That includes the e-mail on the mobile devices that I already mentioned above.

In May the U.S. Supreme Court Upheld Warrantless Searches in homes.

It's also legal in many instances to do warrantless wiretapping, Warrantless car searches. Warrantless GPS vehicle tracking.

It's Not Only The Warrantless Searches

"Louisiana bans using cash in sales of second-hand goods.""It was signed into law on July 1, 2011... the law requires second-hand sales be made paid for with credit cards, paper checks, electronic transfer or money orders. Cash is prohibited...

The law also requires second-hand sellers to obtain personal information about each buyer information like names, addresses, driver’s license number and even, if applicable, their license plate number and turn it over to state officials."It not only concerns me that buyers are losing their privacy. Nor that a state can just null and void U.S. Government issued legal tender. The larger ticket here is, how the hell can a state force consumers to use the banking industry's products?

What will happen if several states should decide to take this route? What if nearly all purchases had to be made in this way? Can you only imagine would will happen when banks know your forced to buy their products? I could easily see fees doubling or even tripling. Talk about banks and their government lobbyists taking over!

Medical providers claim in order to avoid insurance fraud, they now require a driver's license or other tangible form of ID. While that is true, it also allows them to run a background credit check to see if your a financial risk to them. Would a patient, who has a lousy credit history get the same course of treatment?

Piled on top of that are the ever expanding voter ID laws. Employer background checks. Future ID requirements to sign up for internet social services. Retina and facial recognition on city street cameras. Will employer, point of sale transactions, medical service sign ins and cop cars be far behind? The Random drug testing. The airport required passenger ID's. Cell phone tracking software.

The wife and I for years went on school trips as chaperones. Now schools require forms so they can run background checks.

Funny how everybody "else" is allowed to snoop, but when it comes to the government or business practices, everything's a hush hush unless citizens jump through legal hoops to get redacted information.

I know what people will say.. if you have nothing to hide what's the problem? The problem is we, the common masses, are living on what is almost a one-way street when it comes to privacy matters. Just because we all have butts, doesn't mean everybody's entitled to look at them!

One of these intrusions are not a problem, but when you put all of those I mentioned together, I see a real concern. If you think every employee who works in government and business are honest and full of good intentions your living in a Pollyanna world. Information is bought and sold. Sometimes for very nefarious reasons.

The information itself can be contaminated. Names can get crossed up. Most of these databases are impossible for us to correct, even if we should ever become aware of mistakes in the first place.

Criminals, armed with information, can become us. The more information one gives up, the more opportunity a criminal has to impersonate us. Ask anyone who has suffered for years after their identity was stolen.

If a perpetrator has one or two items, up until now, we could provide three or four other pieces of information that would exonerate us. Because of all this informational super technology we may have nothing left to defend ourselves. Things that were previously unknown to those who target a victim have now become semi-public property of someone, somewhere else who has access to almost all the infinitesimal details of our most private information.

Facial Recognition Systems
Posted: Sept. 2, 2011

Video Courtesy "CBS"



MSNBC's Rachel Maddow interviews Eric Schmidt on
Google's stance on privacy and government surveillance.
August 28, 2008

Eric Schmidt was the CEO when this was taped
Presently he is the Executive Chairman of Google
Video Courtesy "ForaTV"

Click Here For The Entire 45:38 Minute Interview



And when it comes to privacy,
Sometimes it's just...