"Big Brother" only wants to help you.

[Silverhair]

Like almost everybody here I am concerned with the increasing lose of privacy. What makes it so difficult is that it isn't the result of a gov't conspiracy, but is from private companies doing things more efficiently and offering better service. In other words, we are going to ask Big Brother to help us. Here are a few examples.

CELL PHONES. A new technology, already in use in some places, automatically tracks the location of an active cell phone, 24/7, to within 100 meters of the phones location. These new antenna & the programs to run them are expected to be quickly instqalled in the entire U.S. The purpose is so that your telephone conversation will be tight beamed to your phone only, instead of using up the power to broadcast it to the entire cell. That saves the phone company a lot of money in saved electricity. It also makes it handy for a 9-11 call. Of course that means YOU will have all of your movements tracked and possibly stored. Notice that this isn't a gov't plot, but instead is the phone company saving money and offering better service. Were were you on Sept 4, 2010 at 9:15AM?

RFID - It makes for cheaper and more efficient inventory tracking. Instead of having to manually verify the number of items recieved in a shipment, the scanner counts the number of responding RFIDs. You could be able to instantly checkout from the store. Just push the shopping cart into a shielded scanner, hit the button, and then swipe the credit card. Now you go to a bagging counter and you are done. Records of you purchases would help the store to know what items you buy and anticipate what you else you might want. Expect to get ads letting you know that they now have a great special in DVDs, etc. And then the gov't starts collecting all of that info and notices that you are making more purchases than the income you declared to the IRS. Or that you are making many small purchases at different stores of the same stuff. Hmmmmmm. Why is this person buying so much __________?

IDENITY THEFT - This is a growing problem, and a serious one. But if you had a positive system of personal ID, (Checkout retina scan? Implanted personal RFID?) then ID theft could be stopped cold. On an international scale something like that could make like difficult for Al-Qeada, smugglers, and other trouble makers like political dissidents. It could help prevent voter fraud - (Sorry, you have already voted.) It could be used for voter fraud - (Sorry, you have already voted.)

NOW HERE IS THE IMPORTANT PART. The RWs are as scared of this stuff as we are. Here is an area where we have common ground with them. In this area we can work together to come up with ideas to protects our freedoms.

[thebigidea]

1. BIG BROTHER LOVES YOU, asking for urine in a cup is pure love

[9215]

2. Republican Bob Barr was on NOW last night

talking about his efforts with ACLU to stop the invasion of privacy and how militaristic nationalism is a great threat to the country.

Amazing. This guy was labeled, and rightly so IMHO, as an obstructionist during the BNL "Iraqgate" scandal.