And my back goes up when I see a camera on a traffic light? This mass collection of data cannot bode well for our freedoms as individuals or as a nation.
As Crockettnj says," As long as it potentially saves one life, why not? I mean, if you have nothing to hide..." Well, I have nothing to hide but a whole lot that could be misinterpreted. I suspect that we all do. The government can track me, check out my purchases, follow my keystrokes and keep tabs on what I am reading.
I have a transponder in my car that allows me to zip through toll booths without having to stop and throw quarters in the bin. When I do, a light flashes and a picture is taken of my license plate. My cell phone, as it turns out, can be tracked whether I have it turned on or not. My calls are made off AT&T cell towers. My purchases are mostly made by credit card and will show that I recently bought a pressure cooker and a cook book to go along with it. I bought gun powder, bullets and ammo this past weekend. I have visited, at various times, right wing, overtly racist websites. I have also checked out Islamic Al Qaida linked websites after the Boston bombing. There is a well used library card...now plastic with a little magnetic strip on the back... in my wallet. I own 4 gun cabinets and what some might consider an arsenal of sniper rifles. My upland bird guns could be described as capable of being capable of short range mayhem, designed to blast and maim. I have made statements on boards such as this that I think our Congress is corrupt. Somewhere in the FBI files, there is my name on a list of subscribers to Soviet Life. ( They collected this information once back in the 70's as I recall . I was a high school teacher at the time and a unit on propaganda was part of a course I taught.) I spent an hour or two reading articles on Reason magazine's website last month. I have contributed to Republican candidates. I wrote letters for George McGovern's race against Nixon in 1972. I am a member of the NRA and the Gun Owners Action League of Massachusetts. I have a virtual ammunition factory in my basement. I have friends in a government agency that let me fire an M4 carbine. Other friends I have cultivated have security clearances way above my pay grade. I call some of them late at night...we often talk about sniper rifles. I have taken pictures of the White House. I could go on......we all could.
Now given sufficient computer power, which our Government certainly has, how much would it take for some computer in a faceless government contractor's facility in some NSA financed office building in any one of a hundred different office parks in this country, to start matching up bit and pieces of information about me...or anyone for that matter, and for me to find myself on a list of suspicious persons or on a no fly list at the very least?
I don't think you have to be a member of the Tim Foil Hat Society to find this trend disturbing. In a country that prides itself on our defense of freedoms, the unchecked collecting of data is chilling, intrusive and pernicious. It's damn dangerous.
