Where did our privacy go?

[thegriz]

Follow this link for tribute to your lost privacy. It's good for a laugh. It might make you sad too if you think about how business and government seem to have no respect for your privacy these days.

I am not posting this link in support of the ACLU!

http://www.aclu.org/pizza/images/screen.swf

 

[dave_pro2a]

Sold to the highest bidder (or the most effective lobbiest).

 

[PromptCritical]

Ironically, the ACLU would probably have no problem with gun owners being treated to such intrusiveness.

 

[ojibweindian]

There hasn't been privacy for decades, only anonymity.

 

[tellner]

Some years back the ACLU and the NRA joined forces over government proposals to search the homes of people in the Projects for (legal) guns to confiscate them. The NRA treated it as a Second Amendment issue. The ACLU treated it as a Fourth Amendment issue.

 

[bender]

ha ha, yeah funny link. Actually I posted that link something like 6 months ago on a computer forum... Thread got closed for being "political", even though I put it in Off Topic.

 

[Outlaws]

Whatever the government hasn't taken, the internet took the rest of.

 

[Froggy]

Whatever the government hasn't taken, the internet took the rest of.

Not so much as taken.... most people give it away.

 

[Kim]

Privacy was lost because the power of government ( ie. a lefty construction of the commerce clause) was expanded to support a welfare state. That was the beginning and it was the left who did it. If you do not understand that you have missed the boat. People have sold their privacy for gold. What else is new. Now the left tries to make people think they have privacy if it is the type of privacy they support. Ask the ACLU to really support privacy and they would laugh at you. So easily decieved.

 

[tellner]

It was a combination of two things:

1) The rise of authoritarian government and the national security state
2) Unbridled capitalism. When corporations discovered that information meant money and there was no effective regulatory structure it was all over.

 

[gm]

It was a combination of two things:

1) The rise of authoritarian government and the national security state
2) Unbridled capitalism. When corporations discovered that information meant money and there was no effective regulatory structure it was all over.

I agree with that 100%. The information age and the ease of gathering it via the internet by potential spouses,employers,grocery chain,marketing schemes,govt agencies or just busybodies looking to steal an identity. These websites buy and sell your personal data,saving footwork and paperwork for anyone with the money to get.It should be regulated heavily but the cash made from it is vastly enormous.They scream freedom of info act when we complain or take the 4th when they get nailed and are up before senate hearings.

Everybody in the business of "wants to know", has their sticky fingers in it.Thats where it went.

 

[tellner]

One thing that would help would be a view more in line with the laws of some European countries. Your information belongs to you. It's your property. If someone wants to make money off it they have to pay you for the use of your property. And they can't sell your property without your permission. It would also give warm fuzzies to the Libertarians and similar in this country. It's something valuable that you own. Your property rights trump someone else's desire to make money over what you own.

 

[articdog]

+1 to Tellner

"One thing that would help would be a view more in line with the laws of some European countries. Your information belongs to you. It's your property. If someone wants to make money off it they have to pay you for the use of your property. And they can't sell your property without your permission. It would also give warm fuzzies to the Libertarians and similar in this country. It's something valuable that you own. Your property rights trump someone else's desire to make money over what you own." Tellner

So - how's that going to happen? Through the legislature? I really like the concept, but special interest groups often ghostwrite proposed language for many laws. I also see our congress beholden to fund-raising interests.

 

[tellner]

And that is the sixty four trillion dollar question. How do you have a democracy or a republic which represents the people when the government and the extremely wealthy, powerful interests are joined together to divide you up and eat you?

When lobbyists write the laws that are supposed to restrain them and those who are supposed to represent you are beholden to them quaint concepts like "liberty" and "the will of the people" and "the consent of the governed" are problematic.

Back in the day we had a small government and no huge pressure groups. Things worked pretty well. After the Civil War, with the rise of industry we had a small government and large, powerful interests. That led to serious problems. The solution was to increase the size and scope of government in order to stand in opposition to the new source of power (cf. Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt). This worked well enough for a while, except where .gov opposition to .com took on a life of its own.

Somewhere in the later 20th century .gov and .com turned into a two headed chimera and grafted on a really scary but discreet national security apparatus designed to keep our fears at a simmer. Frightened people can be counted on to do their masters' bidding with a minimum of fuss.

Now we have our collective tender bits stuck in a cleft stick. If you have a way of getting them out that doesn't involve an orgy of bloodshed for the love of Tsathoggua let us in on it