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Sunday, March 9, 2014

Our Privacy on the Internet

          Tonight on television, the CBS program, Sixty Minutes, broadcasted a program about privacy on the internet, the center focus of which, as I saw it, was centered on the companies which collect our personal data and sells it to many and various marketing companies, employers, and the government–information regarding our purchasing habits, books and papers we read, sexual preferences and orientation, personal medical history, credit history, politics, and on and on. Almost all, if not all, of you know about this. We know about it because the information on these things has finally leaked out over the years, but we sure didn’t know about it in the beginning.One of the speakers on their show even said that you know and, yet, don’t do anything about it–you don’t care. This is the spark which lit my fire tonight in posting this subject to my blog.

          What a lie. Who does he think we are? Does he really think we don’t care? You darn right we care. We all care. I have written in prior blogs, some no further back in time than last week, that our Shadow Government, the Corporatocracy and Power Elite of this country, which really governs us is using mind control and manipulation to control us–our democracy, yours and mine–in our political and economic choices. Not only do we the people care about this treatment (and downright robbery of our Constitutional rights) we are deeply angry about it.

Why haven’t we done anything about it? First of all, this massive invasion of our personal privacy has been going on in secret for many years, completely unbeknownst to us. Not only were we the people not asked for our input and/or approval into these unfavorable processes against us, but also (a second reason), our elected representatives failed us. They, those who are responsible in managing the affairs of our great nation and supposed to represent our interests, turned their backs on us. Rather, they represented only the interest of the Corporatocracy and Power Elite from whom they receive their financing, financing we can’t afford to match (This is even better understood when you include in your thinking the case of Citizens United v Federal Election Commission). Third, and just as important, information regarding the identity of the companies who spy on us, collecting our personal information, and its users to whom they sell it, is, for the most part, unavailable to the public, notwithstanding that their job and very lives are affected.

What should we do about this? If information is going to be collected from a citizen, that citizen should be fully informed of such and have its use, ramifications and possible consequences explained, after which he should have the right to approve or disapprove the action. In addition, a complete audit trail as to the information’s distribution and use (not the information itself, of course) should be maintained and available to the public. In conjunction with this, the names and ownership of every company should be available to the public, i.e. to the people–all the people. After all, every business is a legal entity.

It’s long past time to take back our country. This is not a bumper sticker to be read and ignored. It’s up to all of us to put a stop to these abuses of the people. Business is supposed to serve us–not govern us. Don't you think?

Ronald Miller

mtss86@comcast.net    

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