With the up-coming change in Google's privacy policies, I came to the realization that if the message is to be preserved without necessarily mixing the messenger up in it, I would need to create a new Google profile and transfer my previous blog from one to the other.
The previous blog was not, obviously, entitled "Messages From a Militant Moderate". It's name is soon going to be moot as all the posts on it will be deleted come March 1st 2012 and transferred to this blog.
They will be listed in chronological order (that is, their original posting dates will be preserved) even if they were all posted HERE only recently.
The purpose for this, in case you don't quite get the changes in privacy, is that any "anonymous" information that was previously associated with a Google account - blogs, posts under different or "public" names, etc. - will be combined into one profile, to which one's real name will be attached. This I would rather avoid, less because I have something deceptive to hide and more for reasons of privacy.
Obviously, Dewey Sayenoff isn't my real name. It's a public name, used as a means of conveying information under some recognizable tag without allowing myself or my family, friends, neighbors or postal carriers, etc. to be sucked into any controversy I may have generated.
And I did try to generate some controversy.
I wrote a book (currently in e-book form) called "The Great Right-wing Conspiracy".
(Amazon Kindle - Smashwords)
Call it paranoia, call it being observant as to what happens to people who come out publicly and trash the right-wing (and, to be fair, the left-wing as well, although the right-wing has elevated it to an art-form), call it wishful thinking that I'll even be that much of an irritant to anyone, but I have things to say that I'd rather be heard instead of having my personal life (as boring as it actually is) become the focus of any controversy I kick up.
As for me, myself, you can get to know me through my writings, of which there is a decent amount. Most people would call me a leftist (I'm technically center left and more center than left). No one would call me a "Christian". I did serve my country honorably and am considered modestly "disabled" by the Veteran's Administration. As the book says, I live in the suburbs of one of American's 20 largest cities, was raised a Republican (which, I should point out, I used to be until the GOP was hijacked by right-wing extremists at which point I became an Independent, found out I had no voice and subsequently de-registered myself from the voting roles entirely) in a middle-class home. I am well educated, more through life than formally, but do I have two college degrees.
My personality type is INTJ which pretty much describes why I do what I do. I don't WANT to lead anyone or anything. I have no lust for the spotlight (obviously). I'm content to let others lead, provided I think they're doing a good job. I am biased in my own opinions (who isn't?), but am relatively objective about most things - if one defines objectivity as believing in moderation and actively opposing extremism. If I see something that's wrong, I try to fix it.
I'm usually VERY good at fixing things. I don't mess around. I cut to the heart of the problem. Usually, that's all it takes. Others can then come up with the actual fixes. I'm not conceited enough to think I have ALL the answers. My self-appointed role is the identification of the problems in the first place. That's what most people have trouble doing to begin with.
So here I am, pointing out the problems with the world. I may offer a fix or fifty, but those don't need to be implemented if something better can be done. As long as others agree there is a problem, that I'm at LEAST close to what the problem is and that others are willing to help work on the problem, too, I can be content.
But as I originally said, who I am isn't important. What I have to say is. Sometimes the message is funny. More often, it isn't. Some may think I go too far. Others may think I don't go far enough. Some will agree with me. Some won't. But before anyone comments here, shooting from the hip and probably hitting themselves in the foot and the mouth with the single round, (It's a visual), my most important self-appointed task is to get you to THINK FOR YOURSELF.
You have a brain. USE IT! It will put you in a pretty elite group of humans (at least considering the lack of thinking going on today).
If what I have said makes you go, "Hmmmm..." as you think about it, then it's mission accomplished, whether you comment about it or not. If you react to it without thinking, it will be pretty obvious from any comment you may leave. Just keep in mind here that this is a written media, not a conversation. You have time to think about your response - if any.
So think first. Think first ALWAYS. Make it a habit. You don't have to agree with me. You don't have to LIKE me, either. Thinking first isn't something you'll ever do for ME. That's what you do for YOURSELF. And in the end, everyone benefits when people REALLY think for themselves.
Showing posts with label Privacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Privacy. Show all posts
Friday, February 24, 2012
Saturday, October 1, 2011
We ARE Our Brother's Peeper
Much has been said about the virtues and vices of the current Internet fad, Social Networking, and I feel rather remiss in not bringing this to the attention of mankind by throwing in my own two cents on the subject. To make it short for those of you with limited attention spans because you have to get back to making sure your crop doesn't die in Farmland, I like the concept of social networking. I don't like the implementation of social networking. (Better hurry back now, the asparagus in the south 40 are drying up due to the drought!)
For the rest of you with lives and some curiosity about what I mean, please feel free to grab some coffee, unplug from the mindless tedium of examining the walls and posts of your friends to make sure none of them "tagged" you in an embarrassing photo and thereby sowing the seeds of the destruction of your professional career, sit back and read on.
I like the IDEA of social networking. A way to keep in touch with friends and family is great. I do it all the time. I call this technology e-mail, telephones (or, if you're a touch more modern, cell phones which then bring in texting and picture sharing over a phone), cards, letters and, occasionally, something called a "face-to-face" wherein the parties involved engage in a conversation without the use of any kind of technology. (You can add video conferencing, if you want. Same idea but without the touch, taste or smell and with the intervention of technology).
I know, I know, this kind of technology may be obsolete, time consuming and wasteful, but it gets the job done for me while preserving something I value quite a lot: PRIVACY. All of the forms of social networking I do are those in which I can specifically and deliberately moderate and control the type and amount of information I disclose to or share with others. I can even tell select, trusted individuals not to pass along particularly sensitive information to others and, by and large, they are good about complying with that request. In return, I do the same for them when asked.
This is how REAL LIFE works and I'm good with it. In fact, I'm so used to it that I've gotten quite adept at it. It takes me little time to stay in touch to the level or degree that I want and others feel the same about it.
But then came along MySpace, and and after that Facebook.
On the face of it (no pun intended. No, really, it wasn't intended. The title of this blog was, but not this time.) one would think that having a central place for a person to put up the events in their life where their family and friends can check to keep up would be a good thing. But let's examine that concept and the implementation of what has become modern Social Networking.
Rather than just a place to put up pretty pictures of the kids and turn a website into basically a static, high-tech equivalent of "home movie viewing night" (Oh the pictures of the kids were DARLING! Look, Little Mikey spit up again and I got it in video this time!), modern Social Networking has turned into an electronic window on EVERYTHING YOU DO. I'm not narcissistic enough to want to put out to the world at large EVERYTHING I do. The world at large does not need to know that much about me. I am not willing to share that much about me with the world at large. And yet, this is what Social Networking is: Sharing EVERYTHING about you with the world at large.
Let me say that again: You share EVERYTHING about you. The worse part is that you have little to no control over what you share, when you share it or with whom. Now, I know there are those who will look at the "privacy settings" (snort, choke, giggle hysterically at the thought of privacy controls on an electronic forum which automatically shares everything you do and often times resets those controls to release even more information you DIDN'T want released) and think they're being discrete or vigilant.
They're not.
The rule of thumb (and all of the other fingers, toes, elbows... in fact the whole body) is that once you put it out there, it's not yours anymore. It's not private. It's not secure. It belongs to whomever you put it out on and they can do with it what they please.
Let's look at one example: My own.
The date: September 26th, 2011.
The time: (Who the hell knows - in the afternoon, or evening I think. I don't keep track of minutia like that).
The place: My home computer.
The victim: Facebook.
The mission: To find out whether they are as fucked up as the reports say they are about privacy.
I WANTED to create an organization page to promote this blog. But they don't allow organizations to "network" there. Apparently, organizations must have a real person (singular, not plural, so even partnerships, you figure out who the senior partner is). Once I signed up, I could create one, but I had to sign up as an individual first.
Okay fine. Before signing up, I first signed up with a proxy server. A proxy server changes the Internet address you use to connect to the Internet (and thereby revealing your location in the world - within a few miles - to everyone else). They use this information to deliver you location-relevant ads and data. Your cell phone does much the same thing if you have Internet on it. They want to know where you REALLY are, it seems. Before I did anything, I thought to myself, "I don't want to share that." and took precautions.
I found out where that Internet location was, got a zip code from there and was set to continue.
Of course, the FIRST thing they want you to do is agree to their Terms of Service.
I read them. Yes, yes I did. I've seen the Southpark episode and didn't want Zuckerman (the owner of Facebook) to turn me into a Facebook-inspired human-powered iPad. The thing that got me the most was the fact that you agree they can keep everything you post, upload or offer to them pretty much forever, and they can use it as they see fit.
Let me repeat this: THEY can use YOUR STUFF as THEY see fit - forever.
And you have to agree to this or you don't get to play in their little garden of horrors. I thought to myself that I'm glad I'm not going to be "me" or this could seriously fuck up my life in unimaginable ways. This is especially true for young kids (teens and early twenties) who have more life ahead of them to get fucked up than I do. I had already confirmed one rumor: Facebook keeps your stuff even if you "get rid of it". It's still there. Once you upload it, you can't get it back. You can't delete it. You can't do a do-over if you upload the "wrong thing". It's out there, it will remain out there and you will never know when, where or how that will be used by them.
So I clicked "I agree" and moved on. One of those little things you agree not to do was use a proxy server, but I had already figured out that my Facebook foray was going to be fast. I wasn't going to give them any real information anyhow. Why would I scruple to tell them where I really am?
Next it wanted to know things a resume would demand you put on it: Where do you live, what do you do, gender, date of birth and all of the normal things you usually tell an employer. Then it wanted me to put in hobbies, interests, movies I liked, books I had read, all of the other things you DON'T put on a resume.
I managed to resist the impulse to put in anything accurate. I listed my name as something other than my name, my occupation under the "other" category as "Gadfly" and everything else came from the "Guide To NOT Losing Your Identity Online" in that I told them nothing accurate. My date of birth was the wrong month, the wrong day and the wrong year (but over 13). My location was based on the Internet address from the Proxy Server I was using.
After about an hour of messing around, I managed to get it all set up. The "privacy" settings were hard to find, but once I did, I made sure that they were set to "Share with NO ONE."
As if that was going to help.
One of the things I found most annoying was the "People you might know" section. There was one person in it, who, of course, I had never heard of. I fail to understand how anyone could derive that a person with no true identity, no true age, no appearance, no other accurate information could possibly know anyone. But this poor person was sitting there in my "People you might know" section, urging me to "Friend" them. There was no "No thanks", "Go away", "Leave me the fuck alone", or "Get out of my People You May Know section!" button.
Facebook desperately needs an option other than "Like".
I discovered that if you want someone to go away, you can't do it wholesale. It's strictly a retail thing. Each person has their own individual like and don't like settings. That is, if you want to be left alone by people you don't actually INVITE, guess what? You have to tell the whole world to fuck off face to face, one at a time. Maybe this works for Facebook and it's fresh-faced fans, but for me it would be tiresome, tedious and time-consuming. Facebook needs a less open policy than allowing anyone to "Friend" you and you having to set the level of privacy you want for each one, one at a time.
(Keep in mind that privacy isn't, so when the whole exercise of not sharing with some people can be erased at the touch of an "upgrade" on the whim of some sociopath nutcase who decided being face to face to make friends was too much work, all of the things you may have done in the past to keep yourself "safe" may well be rendered moot at any time."
For someone with a couple of hundred "Friends" this kind of thing can take hours, or even days, to deal with. If you consider it can only take a single update to undo, one begins to see the problem with Social Networking.
But the most interesting (and scary) thing was yet to come. Once I got the account all set up (I even made up a nice, little graphic that meant "Destiny" for it) and was ready to FINALLY get on with my life, Facebook followed me EVERYWHERE I went online.
I post in a lot of comments threads in various news organization sites. Each one I visited while holding Facebook cookies in my cookie jar threw some stupid little pop-up urging me to "like" the site. Well, I knew that if I "Like"'d anything, it would immediately appear on my "wall" where anyone browsing my profile - whether friend or NOT - could see it. The same went for various business sites I occasionally visit. Everyone wanted to be "Like"'d.
That was pretty much the last straw for me. I signed in, "Deleted" my account, deleted the cookies and haven't been back. I say I "Deleted" the account because that's what the option was, but it didn't "delete" it. The account can't be deleted - just suspended. Remember those Terms of Service that let them keep everything you give them? That's right. They "suspend" your account so that if you have Account Deleting Remorse, you can re-activate it again anytime just by signing into your account. How long do they keep it suspended? The data doth not say. It could be for as little as a month, but it's likely forever, like the ToS agreement said.
So my foray into Facebook was finished. Even though I put in nothing that can lead back to me, I still felt violated and in need of a four hour shower.
What did I learn in all of this? Well, for one, Facebook is evil. The concept of sharing one's life with others has been turned into a farce - a constantly streaming overload of intimate and not so intimate details which no mentally stable and healthy person ever needs to know about anyone else. Least you think this is just a trivial matter consider these facts:
You don't really know everyone you "friend". Maybe some of you are careful about that, but probably not. You don't know who who looks at your "wall" - which details your life with such precision, people can find out the patterns of your life and location so well, they can stalk you, know when you're not home and rob you or simply observe you for whatever twisted reason they may have.
And you have almost no control over that.
Even your friends can screw you over. You're all linked together. If any of your friends tag their photos as you, and someone checks out your Facebook page, then the ones of your friends, your topless dance at that private party you over-indulged that one time five years ago may become the REAL reason your boss wants you fired from your dream job - even though it wasn't on the company time or the company dime.
It can all be summed up in one acronym: TMI. Too Much Information.
Your life is laid bare for anyone to peruse and you can do little to nothing to keep it to yourself.
So why is it this way? Money, of course. All of that information out there about you can be used by Facebook to direct advertisers to you thereby monetizing your life for their benefit. The data is useful to businesses, police agencies, spy agencies and other such folks whom Facebook cares to share your data with. Remember, they can use it howsoever they see fit.
The really sad part is how enthusiastically Facebook users embrace the raping of their privacy, lives and futures. It's probably ignorance on their parts. Possibly it's the "it can't happen to ME" mentality the young are afflicted with for too long. The only other option left is "I don't care", which means you have given up all desire to control what people know about you and have abdicated any chance to avoid criminal activity.
The only defense against this is to not get involved in it at all, ever. If you're not on Facebook, your friends can't tag their photos and link them to you. Maybe your name will come up, maybe not. Normally, people don't include full names and locations, but it's possible. However by removing ones' self from Facebook you remove 90% of the danger of that level of "Social Networking".
By not being on Facebook, no one will know whether you like something without you telling them. You can also avoid the up-and-coming feature everyone's talking about (which I didn't experience since it wasn't implemented for newbies by then): The Timeline.
The Timeline is supposed to be just that. It's supposed to be a convenient way of seeing what you did and when you did it.
This will make it FAR easier for criminals to decipher your patterns, learn where you are, hunt you down and rob you of that new iPhone you bragged about getting, wait until you are due to leave home on vacation and rob you blind (because he's seen the pictures of your home you posted by posting family photos and knows in advance what he wants and where it is), or even follow you as any good stalking pervert will.
Before, they had to actually work at things to make a timeline to find your habits and patterns in order to use them to their advantage. Now, Facebook will do that for them. It will also generate gigatons of metadata to follow people around, learn their habits and bother you even more with "relevant ads" wherever you happen to be.
And all the while you, and your friends, are willing and eager accomplices to all of this simply by signing up for a Facebook account.
Now, I know that it's entirely possible you found my blog through someone else's Facebook account. I recently enabled the "like" feature on the blog so it could be liked. This may make me some kind of hypocrite except for the fact I'm writing this blog so soon after doing that. As it turns out, I don't need a Facebook account to promote it in any way. I just need others to promote it by liking it. But at the same time, I'm urging everyone to suspend their Facebook accounts and never, ever, sign into them again.
If you like by blog, fine, bookmark it or add it to your favorites. You can sign up to get an e-mail when I post a new one if you want to keep track. But dump the Facebook ASAP. Even without the stupid games, it's a time suck of epic proportions, it's violating you in ways you don't even know about yet and, assuming you have a future life you want to live to distance yourself from any past youthful indiscretions, is simply a privacy time bomb lurking out there ready for one Wall view to screw up a lifetime of hard work.
Failing that, go ahead and "Like" the blog. If you can't save yourself, maybe by doing that, you can save someone else.
For the rest of you with lives and some curiosity about what I mean, please feel free to grab some coffee, unplug from the mindless tedium of examining the walls and posts of your friends to make sure none of them "tagged" you in an embarrassing photo and thereby sowing the seeds of the destruction of your professional career, sit back and read on.
I like the IDEA of social networking. A way to keep in touch with friends and family is great. I do it all the time. I call this technology e-mail, telephones (or, if you're a touch more modern, cell phones which then bring in texting and picture sharing over a phone), cards, letters and, occasionally, something called a "face-to-face" wherein the parties involved engage in a conversation without the use of any kind of technology. (You can add video conferencing, if you want. Same idea but without the touch, taste or smell and with the intervention of technology).
I know, I know, this kind of technology may be obsolete, time consuming and wasteful, but it gets the job done for me while preserving something I value quite a lot: PRIVACY. All of the forms of social networking I do are those in which I can specifically and deliberately moderate and control the type and amount of information I disclose to or share with others. I can even tell select, trusted individuals not to pass along particularly sensitive information to others and, by and large, they are good about complying with that request. In return, I do the same for them when asked.
This is how REAL LIFE works and I'm good with it. In fact, I'm so used to it that I've gotten quite adept at it. It takes me little time to stay in touch to the level or degree that I want and others feel the same about it.
But then came along MySpace, and and after that Facebook.
On the face of it (no pun intended. No, really, it wasn't intended. The title of this blog was, but not this time.) one would think that having a central place for a person to put up the events in their life where their family and friends can check to keep up would be a good thing. But let's examine that concept and the implementation of what has become modern Social Networking.
Rather than just a place to put up pretty pictures of the kids and turn a website into basically a static, high-tech equivalent of "home movie viewing night" (Oh the pictures of the kids were DARLING! Look, Little Mikey spit up again and I got it in video this time!), modern Social Networking has turned into an electronic window on EVERYTHING YOU DO. I'm not narcissistic enough to want to put out to the world at large EVERYTHING I do. The world at large does not need to know that much about me. I am not willing to share that much about me with the world at large. And yet, this is what Social Networking is: Sharing EVERYTHING about you with the world at large.
Let me say that again: You share EVERYTHING about you. The worse part is that you have little to no control over what you share, when you share it or with whom. Now, I know there are those who will look at the "privacy settings" (snort, choke, giggle hysterically at the thought of privacy controls on an electronic forum which automatically shares everything you do and often times resets those controls to release even more information you DIDN'T want released) and think they're being discrete or vigilant.
They're not.
The rule of thumb (and all of the other fingers, toes, elbows... in fact the whole body) is that once you put it out there, it's not yours anymore. It's not private. It's not secure. It belongs to whomever you put it out on and they can do with it what they please.
Let's look at one example: My own.
The date: September 26th, 2011.
The time: (Who the hell knows - in the afternoon, or evening I think. I don't keep track of minutia like that).
The place: My home computer.
The victim: Facebook.
The mission: To find out whether they are as fucked up as the reports say they are about privacy.
I WANTED to create an organization page to promote this blog. But they don't allow organizations to "network" there. Apparently, organizations must have a real person (singular, not plural, so even partnerships, you figure out who the senior partner is). Once I signed up, I could create one, but I had to sign up as an individual first.
Okay fine. Before signing up, I first signed up with a proxy server. A proxy server changes the Internet address you use to connect to the Internet (and thereby revealing your location in the world - within a few miles - to everyone else). They use this information to deliver you location-relevant ads and data. Your cell phone does much the same thing if you have Internet on it. They want to know where you REALLY are, it seems. Before I did anything, I thought to myself, "I don't want to share that." and took precautions.
I found out where that Internet location was, got a zip code from there and was set to continue.
Of course, the FIRST thing they want you to do is agree to their Terms of Service.
I read them. Yes, yes I did. I've seen the Southpark episode and didn't want Zuckerman (the owner of Facebook) to turn me into a Facebook-inspired human-powered iPad. The thing that got me the most was the fact that you agree they can keep everything you post, upload or offer to them pretty much forever, and they can use it as they see fit.
Let me repeat this: THEY can use YOUR STUFF as THEY see fit - forever.
And you have to agree to this or you don't get to play in their little garden of horrors. I thought to myself that I'm glad I'm not going to be "me" or this could seriously fuck up my life in unimaginable ways. This is especially true for young kids (teens and early twenties) who have more life ahead of them to get fucked up than I do. I had already confirmed one rumor: Facebook keeps your stuff even if you "get rid of it". It's still there. Once you upload it, you can't get it back. You can't delete it. You can't do a do-over if you upload the "wrong thing". It's out there, it will remain out there and you will never know when, where or how that will be used by them.
So I clicked "I agree" and moved on. One of those little things you agree not to do was use a proxy server, but I had already figured out that my Facebook foray was going to be fast. I wasn't going to give them any real information anyhow. Why would I scruple to tell them where I really am?
Next it wanted to know things a resume would demand you put on it: Where do you live, what do you do, gender, date of birth and all of the normal things you usually tell an employer. Then it wanted me to put in hobbies, interests, movies I liked, books I had read, all of the other things you DON'T put on a resume.
I managed to resist the impulse to put in anything accurate. I listed my name as something other than my name, my occupation under the "other" category as "Gadfly" and everything else came from the "Guide To NOT Losing Your Identity Online" in that I told them nothing accurate. My date of birth was the wrong month, the wrong day and the wrong year (but over 13). My location was based on the Internet address from the Proxy Server I was using.
After about an hour of messing around, I managed to get it all set up. The "privacy" settings were hard to find, but once I did, I made sure that they were set to "Share with NO ONE."
As if that was going to help.
One of the things I found most annoying was the "People you might know" section. There was one person in it, who, of course, I had never heard of. I fail to understand how anyone could derive that a person with no true identity, no true age, no appearance, no other accurate information could possibly know anyone. But this poor person was sitting there in my "People you might know" section, urging me to "Friend" them. There was no "No thanks", "Go away", "Leave me the fuck alone", or "Get out of my People You May Know section!" button.
Facebook desperately needs an option other than "Like".
I discovered that if you want someone to go away, you can't do it wholesale. It's strictly a retail thing. Each person has their own individual like and don't like settings. That is, if you want to be left alone by people you don't actually INVITE, guess what? You have to tell the whole world to fuck off face to face, one at a time. Maybe this works for Facebook and it's fresh-faced fans, but for me it would be tiresome, tedious and time-consuming. Facebook needs a less open policy than allowing anyone to "Friend" you and you having to set the level of privacy you want for each one, one at a time.
(Keep in mind that privacy isn't, so when the whole exercise of not sharing with some people can be erased at the touch of an "upgrade" on the whim of some sociopath nutcase who decided being face to face to make friends was too much work, all of the things you may have done in the past to keep yourself "safe" may well be rendered moot at any time."
For someone with a couple of hundred "Friends" this kind of thing can take hours, or even days, to deal with. If you consider it can only take a single update to undo, one begins to see the problem with Social Networking.
But the most interesting (and scary) thing was yet to come. Once I got the account all set up (I even made up a nice, little graphic that meant "Destiny" for it) and was ready to FINALLY get on with my life, Facebook followed me EVERYWHERE I went online.
I post in a lot of comments threads in various news organization sites. Each one I visited while holding Facebook cookies in my cookie jar threw some stupid little pop-up urging me to "like" the site. Well, I knew that if I "Like"'d anything, it would immediately appear on my "wall" where anyone browsing my profile - whether friend or NOT - could see it. The same went for various business sites I occasionally visit. Everyone wanted to be "Like"'d.
That was pretty much the last straw for me. I signed in, "Deleted" my account, deleted the cookies and haven't been back. I say I "Deleted" the account because that's what the option was, but it didn't "delete" it. The account can't be deleted - just suspended. Remember those Terms of Service that let them keep everything you give them? That's right. They "suspend" your account so that if you have Account Deleting Remorse, you can re-activate it again anytime just by signing into your account. How long do they keep it suspended? The data doth not say. It could be for as little as a month, but it's likely forever, like the ToS agreement said.
So my foray into Facebook was finished. Even though I put in nothing that can lead back to me, I still felt violated and in need of a four hour shower.
What did I learn in all of this? Well, for one, Facebook is evil. The concept of sharing one's life with others has been turned into a farce - a constantly streaming overload of intimate and not so intimate details which no mentally stable and healthy person ever needs to know about anyone else. Least you think this is just a trivial matter consider these facts:
You don't really know everyone you "friend". Maybe some of you are careful about that, but probably not. You don't know who who looks at your "wall" - which details your life with such precision, people can find out the patterns of your life and location so well, they can stalk you, know when you're not home and rob you or simply observe you for whatever twisted reason they may have.
And you have almost no control over that.
Even your friends can screw you over. You're all linked together. If any of your friends tag their photos as you, and someone checks out your Facebook page, then the ones of your friends, your topless dance at that private party you over-indulged that one time five years ago may become the REAL reason your boss wants you fired from your dream job - even though it wasn't on the company time or the company dime.
It can all be summed up in one acronym: TMI. Too Much Information.
Your life is laid bare for anyone to peruse and you can do little to nothing to keep it to yourself.
So why is it this way? Money, of course. All of that information out there about you can be used by Facebook to direct advertisers to you thereby monetizing your life for their benefit. The data is useful to businesses, police agencies, spy agencies and other such folks whom Facebook cares to share your data with. Remember, they can use it howsoever they see fit.
The really sad part is how enthusiastically Facebook users embrace the raping of their privacy, lives and futures. It's probably ignorance on their parts. Possibly it's the "it can't happen to ME" mentality the young are afflicted with for too long. The only other option left is "I don't care", which means you have given up all desire to control what people know about you and have abdicated any chance to avoid criminal activity.
The only defense against this is to not get involved in it at all, ever. If you're not on Facebook, your friends can't tag their photos and link them to you. Maybe your name will come up, maybe not. Normally, people don't include full names and locations, but it's possible. However by removing ones' self from Facebook you remove 90% of the danger of that level of "Social Networking".
By not being on Facebook, no one will know whether you like something without you telling them. You can also avoid the up-and-coming feature everyone's talking about (which I didn't experience since it wasn't implemented for newbies by then): The Timeline.
The Timeline is supposed to be just that. It's supposed to be a convenient way of seeing what you did and when you did it.
This will make it FAR easier for criminals to decipher your patterns, learn where you are, hunt you down and rob you of that new iPhone you bragged about getting, wait until you are due to leave home on vacation and rob you blind (because he's seen the pictures of your home you posted by posting family photos and knows in advance what he wants and where it is), or even follow you as any good stalking pervert will.
Before, they had to actually work at things to make a timeline to find your habits and patterns in order to use them to their advantage. Now, Facebook will do that for them. It will also generate gigatons of metadata to follow people around, learn their habits and bother you even more with "relevant ads" wherever you happen to be.
And all the while you, and your friends, are willing and eager accomplices to all of this simply by signing up for a Facebook account.
Now, I know that it's entirely possible you found my blog through someone else's Facebook account. I recently enabled the "like" feature on the blog so it could be liked. This may make me some kind of hypocrite except for the fact I'm writing this blog so soon after doing that. As it turns out, I don't need a Facebook account to promote it in any way. I just need others to promote it by liking it. But at the same time, I'm urging everyone to suspend their Facebook accounts and never, ever, sign into them again.
If you like by blog, fine, bookmark it or add it to your favorites. You can sign up to get an e-mail when I post a new one if you want to keep track. But dump the Facebook ASAP. Even without the stupid games, it's a time suck of epic proportions, it's violating you in ways you don't even know about yet and, assuming you have a future life you want to live to distance yourself from any past youthful indiscretions, is simply a privacy time bomb lurking out there ready for one Wall view to screw up a lifetime of hard work.
Failing that, go ahead and "Like" the blog. If you can't save yourself, maybe by doing that, you can save someone else.
Monday, May 9, 2011
The Privacy That Never Was
The news today is all about the violation of privacy by tracking codes in "apps" and operating systems.
Right off, I'm going to come out and say that I have no problem with a company wanting to make money. I am never against that idea. I have no objections to these tracking codes being used howsoever the developer of the app (short for "application" or program for those of you who are relatively app-less about these things) desires.
What twists my weenie is when these things are being done without the explicit knowledge and consent of the user. Another thing that kind of gets me about all this is the fact people want all this "convenience" for "free".
App developers rarely make a lot of money on their applications sales. What usually gives them collateral (and a much better over time) income is the use of data - yours, specifically, or rather those who use their apps. They take this information and sell it (or share it in a revenue-sharing system) to advertisers who want to bombard you with ads that are "relevant" to you. So far, no problem. This is part of the business world and I'm good with that. After all, if you want to take advantage of the app, you live with the consequences of a developer's lack of income from app sales, their need to stay in cat food and kitty litter and a hungry-for-your-personal-tracking-data advertising agency's deep pockets.
But then comes the creepy part. Developers don't usually EXPLICITLY and SEPARATELY tell you that your personal information (which, by the way, aside from location data, is pretty much "public knowledge" already) will be shared with people you may not want it shared with. That's where the model falls down. You bought an app that tattles on you to people you don't know and probably don't want to know and no one ever told you it did that.
Boo-hoo on you for not reading the fine print.
Unfortunately, people are stupid (I believe I covered that part not too long ago), and go zipping through those End User License Agreements without ever reading the damn things. While I don't necessarily blame them (most of them are written from standard stock in Legaleze , with a few changes buried in Section MMCCXXII, subsection 984, Paragraph 73, heading, B, subject 2 entitled, "How we'll steal everything about your life and have you love it", but I digress), the fact is, it's in there SOMEWHERE in the fine print.
Microscope not included.
So, basically, you have a bunch of people whining about a company or app doing something to which they agreed in the first place.
This isn't so much a "steal their data" issue as it is a stupid people issue. And, to be honest, all developers know they have to idiot-proof their apps, so why they don't idiot-proof their EULA's (And yes, the developer is who puts it into the app so you can click on "I Agree" without ever reading the thing) is beyond me. Did the developers think this kind of thing wouldn't come out? That it would remain a deep, buried secret for all eternity? That people wouldn't skip the reading part and just go on to the Agreeing part?
So these days, you have a bunch of people who are pissed because they were too stupid to read the fine print. You also have some unscrupulous developers who hid what they're doing so far down in the fine print no one can find it without a lawyer, a microscope and the patience of Job.
The bottom line is that we have to idiot-proof the EULA methods. Yes, it's a lot easier to click "I agree" once, but if there wasn't enough time between the showing of the window and the selection of the "I Agree" button for someone to actually READ the thing, at some point, there should be another box that pops up (with a nasty, raspberry sound) saying,
"YOU IDIOT! YOU JUST AGREED TO DONATE YOUR RIGHT KIDNEY!
ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DO THAT?
CLICK YES TO PROCEED,
CLICK NO TO GO BACK AND ACTUALLY READ WHAT YOU JUST IGNORED!!!"
Something tells me that would get their attention.
Of course, it could be approached a bit more reasonably, but no less "in your face"":
"YOU HAVE JUST AGREED TO HAVING ALL OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA, CONTACT INFORMATION, CONTACTS AND/OR TRACKING LOCATION DATA SHARED UNCONDITIONALLY WITH OTHER ADVERTISING AND DEVELOPING COMPANIES.
ARE YOU SURE THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT TO DO?
CLICK YES TO PROCEED OR NO TO CANCEL INSTALLATION."
Then another one that says, "ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY SURE YOU WANT TO DO THIS?"
The selections will be "I Don't Care Who Knows All About Me and don't give a crap about my contacts or anyone else for that matter" and "I Have Second Thoughts".
People being idiots will, of course, skip these messages, too, but you can't say they weren't warned. And, yes, there WILL be people who will agree to all of this simply because they don't care. That's fine. The people who do will not bother installing apps which locate them and tattle on them.
Privacy is, literally, what you make it. I've managed to get along all my life without any apps which track me (Yes, I have a Smartphone, no I have no Internet on it, yes, I have blocked Data use, no, I don't miss all those stupid apps out there) except, perhaps, 911. I'm good with that. But people who wish to pay for "convenience" must realize that the price of enjoying those conveniences is always a surrender of their privacy.
Right off, I'm going to come out and say that I have no problem with a company wanting to make money. I am never against that idea. I have no objections to these tracking codes being used howsoever the developer of the app (short for "application" or program for those of you who are relatively app-less about these things) desires.
What twists my weenie is when these things are being done without the explicit knowledge and consent of the user. Another thing that kind of gets me about all this is the fact people want all this "convenience" for "free".
App developers rarely make a lot of money on their applications sales. What usually gives them collateral (and a much better over time) income is the use of data - yours, specifically, or rather those who use their apps. They take this information and sell it (or share it in a revenue-sharing system) to advertisers who want to bombard you with ads that are "relevant" to you. So far, no problem. This is part of the business world and I'm good with that. After all, if you want to take advantage of the app, you live with the consequences of a developer's lack of income from app sales, their need to stay in cat food and kitty litter and a hungry-for-your-personal-tracking-data advertising agency's deep pockets.
But then comes the creepy part. Developers don't usually EXPLICITLY and SEPARATELY tell you that your personal information (which, by the way, aside from location data, is pretty much "public knowledge" already) will be shared with people you may not want it shared with. That's where the model falls down. You bought an app that tattles on you to people you don't know and probably don't want to know and no one ever told you it did that.
Boo-hoo on you for not reading the fine print.
Unfortunately, people are stupid (I believe I covered that part not too long ago), and go zipping through those End User License Agreements without ever reading the damn things. While I don't necessarily blame them (most of them are written from standard stock in Legaleze , with a few changes buried in Section MMCCXXII, subsection 984, Paragraph 73, heading, B, subject 2 entitled, "How we'll steal everything about your life and have you love it", but I digress), the fact is, it's in there SOMEWHERE in the fine print.
Microscope not included.
So, basically, you have a bunch of people whining about a company or app doing something to which they agreed in the first place.
This isn't so much a "steal their data" issue as it is a stupid people issue. And, to be honest, all developers know they have to idiot-proof their apps, so why they don't idiot-proof their EULA's (And yes, the developer is who puts it into the app so you can click on "I Agree" without ever reading the thing) is beyond me. Did the developers think this kind of thing wouldn't come out? That it would remain a deep, buried secret for all eternity? That people wouldn't skip the reading part and just go on to the Agreeing part?
So these days, you have a bunch of people who are pissed because they were too stupid to read the fine print. You also have some unscrupulous developers who hid what they're doing so far down in the fine print no one can find it without a lawyer, a microscope and the patience of Job.
The bottom line is that we have to idiot-proof the EULA methods. Yes, it's a lot easier to click "I agree" once, but if there wasn't enough time between the showing of the window and the selection of the "I Agree" button for someone to actually READ the thing, at some point, there should be another box that pops up (with a nasty, raspberry sound) saying,
"YOU IDIOT! YOU JUST AGREED TO DONATE YOUR RIGHT KIDNEY!
ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DO THAT?
CLICK YES TO PROCEED,
CLICK NO TO GO BACK AND ACTUALLY READ WHAT YOU JUST IGNORED!!!"
Something tells me that would get their attention.
Of course, it could be approached a bit more reasonably, but no less "in your face"":
"YOU HAVE JUST AGREED TO HAVING ALL OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA, CONTACT INFORMATION, CONTACTS AND/OR TRACKING LOCATION DATA SHARED UNCONDITIONALLY WITH OTHER ADVERTISING AND DEVELOPING COMPANIES.
ARE YOU SURE THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT TO DO?
CLICK YES TO PROCEED OR NO TO CANCEL INSTALLATION."
Then another one that says, "ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY SURE YOU WANT TO DO THIS?"
The selections will be "I Don't Care Who Knows All About Me and don't give a crap about my contacts or anyone else for that matter" and "I Have Second Thoughts".
People being idiots will, of course, skip these messages, too, but you can't say they weren't warned. And, yes, there WILL be people who will agree to all of this simply because they don't care. That's fine. The people who do will not bother installing apps which locate them and tattle on them.
Privacy is, literally, what you make it. I've managed to get along all my life without any apps which track me (Yes, I have a Smartphone, no I have no Internet on it, yes, I have blocked Data use, no, I don't miss all those stupid apps out there) except, perhaps, 911. I'm good with that. But people who wish to pay for "convenience" must realize that the price of enjoying those conveniences is always a surrender of their privacy.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Safety Last
There is a trend lately - whether in the world or in the U.S. or both - to demand that the government make us "safe".
"There ought to be a law!" is the battle cry of the folks who seem intent on swaddling the public in legal and regulatory cotton so that nothing harms them. Now, I'm not talking about product safety wherein blatant negligence results in injury or death. We need to have products, food and drugs that contain what the label says without necessarily killing or hurting anyone in the normal use/consumption of said product. There's nothing wrong with insisting on an acceptable level of product safety. But what is acceptable?
This is where the line between reason and insane becomes blurred. To some, acceptable risk is bungee jumping with moth-eaten elastic. To others, they have to weigh the risks between holding one's breath and breathing. But this is on an individual level. People deciding for themselves what their acceptable levels of risk is. This is all well and good. People shoud decide for themselves how much risk they want in their lives. If it kills them (hopefully, BEFORE they procreate), their bad risk assessment abilities aren't passed on to the next generation, or they serve as a good example of how not to do things for the more risk assessment aware. If it stops people from doing anything productive at all, then they do nothing to endanger anyone else and life goes on without them (because eventually, there's too much risk involved in procreation, they stop procreating and die out).
It's a win-win for Darwin and the Human Race.
But somewhere between the two extremes, we have the government. Swaying between aggressive self preservation and avoiding preservation at all costs, what we end up with is a mash-up of utter indifference and over-zealous protectiveness in the form of laws, regulations, procedures and rules that are glaring in their extremes.
When it comes to business, we have regulations that often are at odds with what is in the best interests of the people - regulations and rules that hold the environment and the health of people in what is arguably utter contempt. On the other end, we have laws and regulations that invade the individual person's dignity and person for the sake of "safety".
It is to the latter that that this posting is addressed. There are a myriad of examples of government-mandated safety regulations. From the seat belt to clean water standards, these regulations help keep us safe in a very real manner. They prevent frequent injury, illness and/or death. But some safety regulations go a bit overboard. These are the kind of things you find at public events: Security screenings for hidden weapons or explosives.
Now, I'm not opposed to these, in general. After all, SOMEONE has to get money for all that high-tech security screening gear people are inventing. But when these screenings are both invasive and utterly ineffective, the overboard-ness of the things becomes glaringly apparent. Take, for example, the TSA's latest brain fart: Virtual strip searches and/or public sexual groping.
For people who are unfortunate enough to be forced to endure the "ham in the can" experience of modern aviation, the indignity of air travel today begins at the security gate. There, they will find a vast assortment of advisory notices telling passengers what they can't bring with them. This list includes the usual things like weapons, pocket knives and other things that have obvious weapons potential. It also includes things like nail clippers (Apparently, the victims of the deadly nail clipper attack dies laughing that some schmuck tried to hijack a plane with them) but, curiously, fails to include pens and pencils as well as car and house keys - all of which are taught in most personal self defense classes to be used as weapons.
One wonders what the hell they're thinking there.
Another thing they are told is the amount of liquids they are allowed to bring on the plane in a carry-on. The maximum, I believe, is 3 ounces per item. This is because it is believed that this amount is insufficient to mix with anything else to create a bomb. This belief is, of course, an utter fallacy, but if the TSA doesn't come up with something new to irritate air travelers every year, people might think they're not doing their jobs.
Once at the actual security station, the by now impatient at the two hour long wait passengers are required to surrender their footwear right off the bat. Most people will then be sent through a metal detector, have their carry-ons x-rayed and, dignity pretty much shot, will move into the canning - or rather boarding - process.
The removal of shoes is because one person, one time, attempted but failed, to ignite a small amount of explosives in his shoe. Whoever decided that three ounces was an insufficient amount of liquid to ignite and do any damage should have checked the shoes of this guy since he carried around three ounces of explosives in each one, but, hey, I'm just a blogger who can read. It would appear that the TSA is contradicting itself, either that or they only really object to people blowing up planes with shoe-bombs but not with OTHER cleverly concealed 3 ounce plastic explosives.
The wonders of modern security never ceases to amaze me.
But despite these, thus far utterly useless, endeavors, we have the most brain-dead, bone-headed, nightmare of security procedures: The Scan and Grope.
This entails a randomly selected victim being singled out of the line to undergo "enhanced security screening" procedures. The poor schmuck is forced to stand in a booth, arms over their head as if in surrender while being irradiated in such a way that the return signal displays what is essentially their naked body to someone in another room. Never mind that radiation exposure and damage is cumulative over a lifetime. Never mind that some people have religious nudity taboos. Never mind that not one of these people - not one - has ever concealed anything of consequence.
Never mind that this device will not show anything concealed inside the human body where considerably more than three ounces of explosives (along with the necessary equipment to set it off) can be concealed. The long and short of it is that this personal-privacy-intrusive scan can not detect what it is designed to detect even if that something is NOT inside someone.
But the ultimate indignity is what happens if you refuse the scan: You are sexually molested.
That's right. In public, in front of several hundred silently consenting witnesses, a stranger grabs you by your private parts, checking for hidden explosives.
Please note, all of this is because one person - once - tried, but failed, to set off a bomb concealed in his underwear.
The horror stories of abuses and indignities - from the cancer survivor who was forced, in public, to show the agent her breast prosthesis to the ostomy patient whose urostomy bag was ripped off in the course of the search and was subsequently forced to sit on an airplane in his own urine - are legion. It is patently obvious that this latest assault on our privacy is neither popular or warranted. The truly sad part is that the underwear bomber would most likely have passed both visual and manual inspection.
Now, I do happen to know a little bit about the constitutionality of security at airports and to what standard it is applied. It is required that the security not be overly intrusive (without probable cause, that is) and that it be effective. This is based on past decisions handed down by the Supreme Court over the years to various things the TSA has implemented. X-rayed luggage, metal detectors and even removed footwear are fine, it seems. They, at least, have some reasonable chance of detecting what they are designed to detect and so, even if it's undignified, that part's constitutional.
Unfortunately, the enhanced security screening procedures - both the scanner and the groping - are acknowledged by security specialists around the world to be ineffective at detecting an "underwear bomb". That is precisely what they are SUPPOSED to detect. Of course, the TSA vehemently denies this, but can you really trust an agency that can get its porn for free through a high-tech peep-show of hundreds of people a day to have the best interests of the flying public at heart?
In all seriousness, the new security screening procedures are so unconstitutional as to be a government sanctioned sexual assault every time someone is groped or scanned. The litmus test for the constitutionality of these enhanced screenings came back blatantly against it, but the TSA soldiers on, groping and sexually violating passenger after passenger at dozens of major airports around the country on nearly a minute to minute basis.
This is how the government has opted to keep us SAFE? By utilizing procedures and technology that don't work?
It would seem so.
I know I've said that people are stupid. I stand by that. Point in evidence: A general lack of rioting in the streets (or at least at airports) over these new procedures. They are an affront to the personal dignity and privacy of the average American air traveler, but aside from several vocal people, the vast majority of them just take it in stride, never realizing the magnitude of liberty and freedom - not to mention privacy - they, with their silent consent, have lost.
And so, in the interests of safety, the people of the U.S. continue to be violated in their person and privacy in a process that guarantees nothing but embarrassment, thus proving Franklin's adage, that those who would give up a little freedom for a little security deserve neither and lose both.
"There ought to be a law!" is the battle cry of the folks who seem intent on swaddling the public in legal and regulatory cotton so that nothing harms them. Now, I'm not talking about product safety wherein blatant negligence results in injury or death. We need to have products, food and drugs that contain what the label says without necessarily killing or hurting anyone in the normal use/consumption of said product. There's nothing wrong with insisting on an acceptable level of product safety. But what is acceptable?
This is where the line between reason and insane becomes blurred. To some, acceptable risk is bungee jumping with moth-eaten elastic. To others, they have to weigh the risks between holding one's breath and breathing. But this is on an individual level. People deciding for themselves what their acceptable levels of risk is. This is all well and good. People shoud decide for themselves how much risk they want in their lives. If it kills them (hopefully, BEFORE they procreate), their bad risk assessment abilities aren't passed on to the next generation, or they serve as a good example of how not to do things for the more risk assessment aware. If it stops people from doing anything productive at all, then they do nothing to endanger anyone else and life goes on without them (because eventually, there's too much risk involved in procreation, they stop procreating and die out).
It's a win-win for Darwin and the Human Race.
But somewhere between the two extremes, we have the government. Swaying between aggressive self preservation and avoiding preservation at all costs, what we end up with is a mash-up of utter indifference and over-zealous protectiveness in the form of laws, regulations, procedures and rules that are glaring in their extremes.
When it comes to business, we have regulations that often are at odds with what is in the best interests of the people - regulations and rules that hold the environment and the health of people in what is arguably utter contempt. On the other end, we have laws and regulations that invade the individual person's dignity and person for the sake of "safety".
It is to the latter that that this posting is addressed. There are a myriad of examples of government-mandated safety regulations. From the seat belt to clean water standards, these regulations help keep us safe in a very real manner. They prevent frequent injury, illness and/or death. But some safety regulations go a bit overboard. These are the kind of things you find at public events: Security screenings for hidden weapons or explosives.
Now, I'm not opposed to these, in general. After all, SOMEONE has to get money for all that high-tech security screening gear people are inventing. But when these screenings are both invasive and utterly ineffective, the overboard-ness of the things becomes glaringly apparent. Take, for example, the TSA's latest brain fart: Virtual strip searches and/or public sexual groping.
For people who are unfortunate enough to be forced to endure the "ham in the can" experience of modern aviation, the indignity of air travel today begins at the security gate. There, they will find a vast assortment of advisory notices telling passengers what they can't bring with them. This list includes the usual things like weapons, pocket knives and other things that have obvious weapons potential. It also includes things like nail clippers (Apparently, the victims of the deadly nail clipper attack dies laughing that some schmuck tried to hijack a plane with them) but, curiously, fails to include pens and pencils as well as car and house keys - all of which are taught in most personal self defense classes to be used as weapons.
One wonders what the hell they're thinking there.
Another thing they are told is the amount of liquids they are allowed to bring on the plane in a carry-on. The maximum, I believe, is 3 ounces per item. This is because it is believed that this amount is insufficient to mix with anything else to create a bomb. This belief is, of course, an utter fallacy, but if the TSA doesn't come up with something new to irritate air travelers every year, people might think they're not doing their jobs.
Once at the actual security station, the by now impatient at the two hour long wait passengers are required to surrender their footwear right off the bat. Most people will then be sent through a metal detector, have their carry-ons x-rayed and, dignity pretty much shot, will move into the canning - or rather boarding - process.
The removal of shoes is because one person, one time, attempted but failed, to ignite a small amount of explosives in his shoe. Whoever decided that three ounces was an insufficient amount of liquid to ignite and do any damage should have checked the shoes of this guy since he carried around three ounces of explosives in each one, but, hey, I'm just a blogger who can read. It would appear that the TSA is contradicting itself, either that or they only really object to people blowing up planes with shoe-bombs but not with OTHER cleverly concealed 3 ounce plastic explosives.
The wonders of modern security never ceases to amaze me.
But despite these, thus far utterly useless, endeavors, we have the most brain-dead, bone-headed, nightmare of security procedures: The Scan and Grope.
This entails a randomly selected victim being singled out of the line to undergo "enhanced security screening" procedures. The poor schmuck is forced to stand in a booth, arms over their head as if in surrender while being irradiated in such a way that the return signal displays what is essentially their naked body to someone in another room. Never mind that radiation exposure and damage is cumulative over a lifetime. Never mind that some people have religious nudity taboos. Never mind that not one of these people - not one - has ever concealed anything of consequence.
Never mind that this device will not show anything concealed inside the human body where considerably more than three ounces of explosives (along with the necessary equipment to set it off) can be concealed. The long and short of it is that this personal-privacy-intrusive scan can not detect what it is designed to detect even if that something is NOT inside someone.
But the ultimate indignity is what happens if you refuse the scan: You are sexually molested.
That's right. In public, in front of several hundred silently consenting witnesses, a stranger grabs you by your private parts, checking for hidden explosives.
Please note, all of this is because one person - once - tried, but failed, to set off a bomb concealed in his underwear.
The horror stories of abuses and indignities - from the cancer survivor who was forced, in public, to show the agent her breast prosthesis to the ostomy patient whose urostomy bag was ripped off in the course of the search and was subsequently forced to sit on an airplane in his own urine - are legion. It is patently obvious that this latest assault on our privacy is neither popular or warranted. The truly sad part is that the underwear bomber would most likely have passed both visual and manual inspection.
Now, I do happen to know a little bit about the constitutionality of security at airports and to what standard it is applied. It is required that the security not be overly intrusive (without probable cause, that is) and that it be effective. This is based on past decisions handed down by the Supreme Court over the years to various things the TSA has implemented. X-rayed luggage, metal detectors and even removed footwear are fine, it seems. They, at least, have some reasonable chance of detecting what they are designed to detect and so, even if it's undignified, that part's constitutional.
Unfortunately, the enhanced security screening procedures - both the scanner and the groping - are acknowledged by security specialists around the world to be ineffective at detecting an "underwear bomb". That is precisely what they are SUPPOSED to detect. Of course, the TSA vehemently denies this, but can you really trust an agency that can get its porn for free through a high-tech peep-show of hundreds of people a day to have the best interests of the flying public at heart?
In all seriousness, the new security screening procedures are so unconstitutional as to be a government sanctioned sexual assault every time someone is groped or scanned. The litmus test for the constitutionality of these enhanced screenings came back blatantly against it, but the TSA soldiers on, groping and sexually violating passenger after passenger at dozens of major airports around the country on nearly a minute to minute basis.
This is how the government has opted to keep us SAFE? By utilizing procedures and technology that don't work?
It would seem so.
I know I've said that people are stupid. I stand by that. Point in evidence: A general lack of rioting in the streets (or at least at airports) over these new procedures. They are an affront to the personal dignity and privacy of the average American air traveler, but aside from several vocal people, the vast majority of them just take it in stride, never realizing the magnitude of liberty and freedom - not to mention privacy - they, with their silent consent, have lost.
And so, in the interests of safety, the people of the U.S. continue to be violated in their person and privacy in a process that guarantees nothing but embarrassment, thus proving Franklin's adage, that those who would give up a little freedom for a little security deserve neither and lose both.
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