Privacy, Who Needs Privacy?

In this article, a sociologist and professor of international relations at George Washington University points out that our privacy is at risk, and explains how companies actually take our information and matches it with other sites, in a horrible violation of privacy. Who are the people buying this information? According to the article, "the Department of Justice, and through it, the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, IRS and the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services."

We have to take a stand against this stupidity. What this means is through an anonymous interface, there exists the ability to harvest a person's life and all of their contacts, all correspondence and shopping habits. Google searches, Amazon book lists, message boards and instant messages, all with the ability to be trapped and kept forever. Obama has failed miserably in protecting our privacy, but let's not forget it was George "Warrants Are For Losers" Bush who started this in the first place. This has to stop, and now. How abusable is it that a message board post or email can be used as reasonable grounds for a warrant and even greater intrusion?

The ISPs of the country should have to protect their customers. Customers should be made aware of this, and should take responsibility for their burden of knowledge. The government can't be trusted to do the right thing here. Just because you don't have anything to hide doesn't mean that you should be profiled and your movements recorded. People who don't protect their privacy will become a liability to those who do. What will happen when there is no judge to oversee this practice, and no branch of government that doesn't directly benefit from this intrusion?

I write for several sources, as well as freelance (both fiction and non). This week, my most interesting Google searches were:

child abuse internet message boards (article on Internet predators)
ghost science measurements
meth laws missouri otc drugs used to make (in response to a local op/ed piece)
murder crime methods (always good to browse for crime story inspiration)
tracking family relatives (good Private Investigation story brewing)
hair extensions wigs (just curious, really)

Try reading that without the comments, and see how easily lack of context can make the most legal and legitimate actions appear suspicious. What if a woman wore a wig and robbed a store for over the counter medicines to make meth? That happens all the time in Missouri. Think about that the next time you go to a search engine. Don't look at it through the eyes of someone who wants to know who you are, but someone who wants to find a reason to dig for more dirt, or just needed a direction to dig in.

There are three reasons to lose a little sleep tonight. One, this is happening right now. Two, months of Internet traffic is being sifted and recorded for this use. Three, there is nobody who can make this stop, and even the professor who wrote the article points out that it is the very government who benefits from this behavior that has the best chance of protecting us.

All together now: "Yeah, right."