As
published on Slashdot, in their
"Ask Slashdot" section, "
gabec asks:"
"This weekend my mother bought a grille lighter, something like this butane lighter. The self-scanner at Kroger's locked itself up and paged a clerk, who had to enter our drivers license numbers into her kiosk before we could continue. Last week my girlfriend bought four peaches. An alert came up stating that peaches were a restricted item and she had to identify herself before being able to purchase such a decidedly high quantity of the dangerous fruit. My video games spy on me, reporting the applications I run, the websites I visit, the accounts of the people I IM. My ISP is being strong-armed into a two-year archive of each action I take online under the guise of catching pedophiles, the companies I trust to free information are my enemies, the people looking out for me are being watched. As if that weren't enough, my own computer spies on me daily, my bank has been compromised, my phone is tapped--has been for years--and my phone company is A-OK with it. What's a guy that doesn't even consider himself paranoid to think of the current state of affairs?
The nerds
got right to answering how bad it is, and how much worse it can get.
Slashdot's editor interjected:
The sad state of affairs is that Big Brother probably became a quiet part of our lives a lot earlier. The big question now is: how much worse can it get?
gabec concluded their question with:
Am I just accustomed to old ways? Does the new generation, born with these restrictions, feel the weight of these bonds and recoil from my fears as paranoia? What can I, a person with no political interests--a person that would really rather think that the people in office are there because they're looking out for us, our rights, and our freedoms and not because their short-sightedness is creating a police state--do to stem the tide?"
Many of their responses show how bad our police state surveillence already is. Not just the extra examples. But the deeper question of complicity of the public is answered by the many nerds who deny the problem. Or mock the people ringing the alarm. These are not just any bloggers - they are largely the people working to deliver these spy systems. Their youth makes them perfect stooges, because it's so much easier to learn to program than to understand privacy they take for granted, often from their parents' basement. But it also makes them worth talking to about the spying culture. Because they're more naive than cynical, even when they're both. They are still young enough to benefit from compassionate, good humored, plain talk about how adults need privacy.
And talking with them offers insight into the bigger question: with all the spying starting up, what can we do to protect ourselves?
I favor a Privacy Amendment clarifying the 4th Amendment's right to privacy, and clarifying the 9th and 10th Amendment's retention of unenumerated rights by the people. YMMV.