There's no such thing as "privacy" online

[sheshe2]

Earlier I wrote about the fact that Edwards Snowden's "handlers" aren't really concerned about privacy. If they were, they surely wouldn't completely ignore things like this:

Demanding transparency from data brokers

By Julie Brill, Published: August 15

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/demanding-transparency-from-data-brokers/2013/08/15/00609680-0382-11e3-9259-e2aafe5a5f84_story.html

Acxiom, reportedly has information on about 700 million active consumers worldwide, with some 1,500 data points per person. Such data brokers learn about us from the cookies that hitch rides as users travel online and from the social media sites where we post everything from home addresses to pictures to magazine subscriptions and store purchases, as well as deeds on file in towns and counties. They load all this data into sophisticated algorithms that spew out alarmingly personal predictions about our health, financial status, interests, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, politics and habits.

As Bob Cesca pointed out the other day, visiting Glenn Greenwald's article about XKEYSCORE at The Guardian would have provided information to 27 different trackers for this kind of data. While Glenn and The Guardian are hyperventilating about the fact that the US government might get access to that information (when in reality, NSA's online searches are restricted to non US persons), they obviously don't give a shit about the actual dossier on almost every American that companies like Acxiom make available to the corporate world.

That's what makes the whole conversation about all of this so ridiculous and infuriating. If there were two messages I'd like to scream at everyone they would be:

Take a look at the real agenda of folks like Greenwald, Assange, and Applebaum - it has absolutely nothing to do with privacy.

There is no such thing as privacy online. If we want to take advantage of the internet, we just have to accept that.

If we could understand those two things, we might actually be able to have a reasonable conversation about the very real issues that are involved.

http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2013/08/theres-no-such-thing-as-privacy-online.html

[Demo_Chris]

1. Question: Do you REALLY not understand how ridiculous this "point" is?

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. According to that article Wyden and Udall, who have more of a clue,

are also hyperventilating.

I think we are now in a different phase of the relentless propaganda campaign. Soon it will be the conservative media a la Roger Aisles and 1973... I swear.

[neverforget]

11. We just need to stop worrying and love the spying.

Because nothing is private ya know.

[Whisp]

2. K&R

[NuclearDem]

3. Ah, well, if that's how it is, then that's how it should be.

[PowerToThePeople]

4. You do not understand the technology.

But, better safeguards should be in place so that non-technical internet users can have privacy while they are on the internet.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. The problem is that many of the settings are not available

to the average user, (unless you spend a lot of money for it and the other side has a copy of the key).

I cannot encrypt my email. My mother could not open it, nor my boss.

[PSPS]

7. Just another #10 with some #7 and #5 mixed in for good measure

Worshiper/Apologist Hit Parade:

1. This is nothing new
2. I have nothing to hide
3. What are you, a freeper?
4. But Obama is better than Christie/Romney/Bush/Hitler
5. Greenwald/Flaherty/Gillum/Apuzzo/Braun is a hack
6. We have red light cameras, so this is no big deal
7. Corporations have my data anyway
8. At least Obama is trying
9. This is just the media trying to take Obama down
10. It's a misunderstanding/you are confused
11. You're a racist
12. Nobody cares about this anyway / "unfounded fears"
13. I don't like Snowden, therefore we must disregard all of this
14. Other countries do it

[Whisp]

8. when Fuck Ron Paul's spawn takes the WH

I hope the ones working against this administration lose at least one night's sleep because beating down on the administration at every piece of bait thrown out there, instead of spending more adrenalin on the dirty shitlegs GOP/TPers and what they are doing right under your noses...

It's a shame.

[PSPS]

12. I can't tell if yours is a #4 or #9

It's probably a little of both.

But you reveal your problem in your response. You are behaving like a swooner -- anything that happens when Obama is president must be characterized as fine and dandy. Well, that's a personality cult, not American values. The reason people are up in arms about this extralegal activity has nothing to do with who is president.

[Whisp]

13. You said: 'The reason people are up in arms about this extralegal activity

has nothing to do with who is president.'

Wrong.
Some posters here, for years, have absolutely nothing positive to say about this administration and leap and jump onto any negative thing sloshed out there by the media and the GOP. You'd have to be blind not to see that. There are those who do not fit this category, for sure, and have honest questions and observations. But many here are thoroughly dedicated to undermine the President in any way they can, every way they can.

[sheshe2]

15. Thanks Whisp.

[sheshe2]

14. Why do you need to belittle someone that responds to you?

"A Swooner" What is next Obamabot?

Sad that is all that you can come up with.

The last time I asked a Snowden supporter what they called themselves. This was after they dumped on a poster. Their answer Patriot. I find that a tad scary.

[LWolf]

9. Wrong.

There is no such thing as unconditional, unlimited privacy on the internet.

There are degrees of privacy. And there are lines to cross.

The government collecting data on private citizens for future use is one of those lines.

[sheshe2]

10. Really?

Julie Brill is a member of the Federal Trade Commission.

Revelations about the extent to which the National Security Agency (NSA) collects personal information started a robust national debate on how best to balance national security and privacy rights. Last month, members of the House of Representatives questioned the funding for the government’s data-collection programs, and last week the White House proposed steps to increase the transparency of those programs. Along the way, consumers have gotten a crash course in the price we pay to participate in the online and mobile marketplace: Our most intimate information floats free in cyberspace, ripe for any data miner — government or otherwise — to collect, use, package and sell.

All day long, as we surf the Web, tap at apps or power up our smartphones, we send digital information out into cyberspace. As we live our wired lives, we constantly add to the veins from which data miners pull pure gold. It took the NSA revelations to make concrete what this exchange means: that firms, governments or individuals, without our knowledge or consent, can amass large amounts of private information about people to use for purposes we don’t expect or understand.

snip

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) provides some protections. The law requires that entities that collect information for those making employment, credit, insurance and housing decisions do so in a manner that ensures the information is accurate. The Federal Trade Commission targets firms that screen potential tenants, credit recipients, employees and insurance purchasers without complying with the law. But in an online world in which companies large and small innovate constantly and — sometimes unknowingly — push legal boundaries, it is difficult to reach all of those who may engage in activities that fall afoul of the FCRA.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/demanding-transparency-from-data-brokers/2013/08/15/00609680-0382-11e3-9259-e2aafe5a5f84_story.html

[LWolf]

17. Really.

If there was no such thing as privacy, you'd know my name and address.

Clearly, you're having trouble comprehending "unconditional" and "unlimited."

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

16. Then why is the NSA keeping the gathering of it secret? Why is the regime saying it will modify it?

If everybody like you already know about it, and it's so benevolent, why the secrets and CYA statements?

What is their "real Agenda"?