First of all, let me preface this by saying I am a new KOS user (longtime lurker), and this is the first diary I have EVER written. This is not really a diary, but a story intended to invoke discussion about two seemingly similar entities (similarities to be explained in the story), similar in all respects except for purpose and leadership.
As the title implies, this is a tale of two cities, but in a different world from the world that Dickens inhabited. This world to which I refer is the electronic world in which we all inhabit these days. Let's call these cities North San Angeles (NSA) and Klimpton On Savannah (KOS).
NSA is a city on a hill, cold and heartless; led from the top down by a cabal of self centered, ambitious, politically driven people who operate under the guise of protecting the citizens and their preferred way of life in the city from a nebulous enemy; you know, THEM.
KOS is a city located on a plain, surrounded by rolling hills. It is more populist, giving the citizens a method of self policing, aided by the "leaders" of the city, and the terms that the citizens agreed to live by. This society protects itself from their enemies; those with opposing viewpoints of how life should be. Opposing viewpoints are allowed, but are tightly moderated.
NSA monitors it's citizen's electronic communications, searching for relationships, key words, locations and direction of the communications, searching for patterns that might give them an early warning of danger to the people of NSA. in doing so, they create massive databases of information on their citizen's communications, and the people's privacy is deemed not as important as the security of the city.
KOS monitors it's citizen's communications, guarding against trolls of the enemy who's intent is to destroy the peaceful life that the people of KOS enjoy. in doing so, they also create massive databases of information on the citizens communications, albeit not as massive size of databases and amount of communications, but collected nonetheless. In turn, the "leaders" of KOS connect their citizens with others of similar likes, and also providers of services and products that the citizens may have been seeking in the past.
If you have stayed with me so far, please stay a little longer.
NSA has been accused in recent months of criminally (in my opinion) monitoring the phone calls, emails and texts of us who are citizens and of world leaders, and uses the excuse of fighting the War on Civil Rights, excuse me, Terror. They store the information of millions, perhaps billions, of these communications on servers across the nation and world. You would think that this would be an insurmountable task, but anyone who thinks there isn't too much server space in this country has never seen the "What does the Fox Say" video. They will never run out of space.
They use this information to find links between terrorists and others that wish to do harm to the USA, although they haven't really been very successful (Boston anyone). Arguably, we let them do this. There are ways to prevent at least some of the intrusions into our privacy, like using those cheap pay by the minute phones, public computers, etc., but it is easier to complain and continue what we are doing. We sure don't have, or at least display the political will to stop this, or a large enough portion of us. Some people are willing to give up freedom for security. And some people think, and I am one of them, that if they are monitoring my communications, My God, how empty are their lives. But it pisses me off anyway.
But as I pointed out in the story, KOS is doing the same thing. I knew this when I signed up to the site, and did it voluntarily. It is nowhere near as dangerous or nefarious as the NSA. but KOS knows I have been shopping for tires, and have been on the Exchange in my state looking for insurance for my girlfriend, and everything else I have been doing at sites that leave cookies on my PC.
I'm pretty sure there is no cookies on my PC from the NSA, unless they are in cahoots with the Insurance Exchanges or a private sector company to put it there. And I'm almost positive they are not reading things from my PC. But KOS does read the cookies on my machine. I'm positive of that.
So the purpose of my story here, is not to get kicked off my first week, or start a flame fest, but to ask: Why are we so angry about one incursion into our privacy, and yet so sanguine about the other? I willingly gave up my privacy to join this site, because of the benefit to me of the material on here. I see no benefit to the NSA spying, perhaps there is a benefit that I do not see, being as I am just a lowly civilian to the powers that be.
I perceive more danger in a private for-profit company knowing about me than I do the NSA, yet here I am.
