| So as we all know, there's been a bit of an upheaval regarding Ed Snowden's revelations of the spying programs employed by the US and other governments. Electronic communications of every sort are being vacuumed up and saved like it or not. If your communications get routed though the US or London, you can assume they have been recorded and may be searched at some point. Some folks would argue that there's no real harm in this - that we're better off trading this privacy in for security in the form of monitoring. Some argue that the removal of privacy inhibits people from speaking and exchanging ideas freely. Still others would argue that the governments that we kinda-sorta trust today could change and turn on us in the future and use this information against us. So, my question is: How important is privacy to you? Why is it important, and what expectations do you have on privacy? | (http://owni.eu/files/2011/05/spying.jpg) |
They can make predictions about our future purchasing decisions by analysing our usage data. If a company sees that I've visited 5 different websites to research laptops in the last 2 days, there's a good chance that throwing a laptop ad my way will result in a hit and possibly a purchase. Based on other pages that I perused, they might be able to match a specific machine and style to my preferences. If they see that I've also been looking for quotes on luxury items, then the might hit me with an ad that focuses more on style than price - saving the price slashing ads for those who visit sites like walmart.com or who download certain types of music that statistically correlate more strongly with those who are less affluent.
They can make predictions about our future purchasing decisions by analysing our usage data. If a company sees that I've visited 5 different websites to research laptops in the last 2 days, there's a good chance that throwing a laptop ad my way will result in a hit and possibly a purchase. Based on other pages that I perused, they might be able to match a specific machine and style to my preferences. If they see that I've also been looking for quotes on luxury items, then the might hit me with an ad that focuses more on style than price - saving the price slashing ads for those who visit sites like walmart.com or who download certain types of music that statistically correlate more strongly with those who are less affluent.
What I think is silly is that in my experience people seem to treat targeted advertising as an unquestionably negative thing. So much so that I even had a roommate who, whenever he was watching Hulu, would purposely rate the advertisements as the opposite of how he actually felt because he didn't like the idea of Hulu "trying to sell him something." To me that is just silly. If I have to watch ads I would much rather see something I am interested in, like movies and video games, than random crap like make-up and car commercials. To me targeted advertising is a good thing. It prevents both me from wasting time and the advertiser from wasting money by showing me random crap I'm never going to buy.
Now obviously there's some stuff about my internet usage I wouldn't want them to sell to potential employers and stuff (for example, posting on the PS forums while at work :innocent: ).
Btw, your opinion is being recorded by your government.xD
There's an interesting firefox addon called Collusion which shows you how you are being tracked.
However, alongside those provisions, the Fisa court-approved policies allow the NSA to:
• Keep data that could potentially contain details of US persons for up to five years;
• Retain and make use of "inadvertently acquired" domestic communications if they contain usable intelligence, information on criminal activity, threat of harm to people or property, are encrypted, or are believed to contain any information relevant to cybersecurity;
So in light of all the way the corporations and governments spy on and track people, you're left with the conclusion that being tracked and spied on is almost inescapable in this day and age.
So in light of all the way the corporations and governments spy on and track people, you're left with the conclusion that being tracked and spied on is almost inescapable in this day and age. Its fair to assume that any records generated by any modern government office ( ie post office, library, motor vehicle dept, IRS, etc.. ) will be stored somewhere for as long as possible. The question is, do people really have a right to privacy? What is it worth, and how important is it to fight for it?
91%? Seriously? So for every extra $100,000 you work to make, you would have taken home only $9000?This is one of the difficulties with simplistic thinking (sorry to call this statement simplistic, but , well, it is...) The tax rate is one measure of the equality of society- other measures are important too: cost of living, shard benefits to society, sharing the cost of roads, police, hospitals, clean air and water, library, schools, etc. For a fuller picture of why the late 50's to the mid 70's in USA was a time of greater and increasing social equality and opportunity, read "The Spirit Level" by British sociologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/resources/spirit-level-why-equality-better-everyone
I would straight up leave and take my business with me.
Constitutions are outdated anyway, they were made by anti-fascists, they are socialistic, they need to be reformed.
Believes JP Morgan. (http://blogs.euobserver.com/phillips/2013/06/07/jp-morgan-to-eurozone-periphery-get-rid-of-your-pinko-anti-fascist-constitutions/)
Not me. Neither Evgeny Morozov (http://www.faz.net/-hur-7bguu).
Really insightful articles, LigH- thanks for posting. More people in the USA might benefit from a deeper and broader view of social freedoms.
What's funny is how quickly you can get used to not having privacy.Even much more funny :( is how quickly you can get used not having rights, in general, so i.e. right to your own privacy or to have choices or whatever even if these seemed to be 'established' rights 'til a few years ago.
I don't think being safe from terrorism or somehow ensure a greater "would-be-safety" is worth the freedom that's being given up in the process.Safety to me is not actually a reason to anything here but a simple pretext to allow generalized control… essentially I can't see nothing for real linked to safety.
Yeah government-forced economic equality is great. That's why the USSR is the undisputed world leader and East Germany was so much more prosperous than the west...Government "forced" equality is written into the constitution of all democracies. Only fascist governments attempt to rely on neoliberal, libertarian concepts first espoused by Thomas Hobbes in 1651, and more recently articulated by Robert Nozick. The wealthiest individual citizenries in the world are found in the Scandinavian social democracies, and they also have the highest personal and corporate taxes. Sweden. Norway. Finland. And Switzerland.
Why did the absolute NSA surveillance not prevent the Nairobi mall terror? ... There is no reason for absolute surveillance.