Feb 2, 2006

Not my intention to create a political site, however some shit is just, um.

Recently, attention has come to the idea that our current president and his administration have authorized unwarranted mass-wiretapping to listen in on domestic activity. Whether this listening-in has to do with terrorism or simple disagreement or disgust with the current shitty poiliticial powers is of little difference. People who communicate with computers and telephones after the year 2001 have had the vague idea, feeling that their conversations are no longer private. Someone is keeping track. Someone wants to know what us motherfuckers're saying. And how to make us shut the fuck up and fulfill our corporate-consumer responsibilty. Do what Viacom and Philip Morris ExxonMart asks us to do. Independently of all that, we still wish to get drunk, laid and heard. Too bad. You wear your yellow fadey sunglasses and tight pants and post your party photos for all your popular crowd internet hangers-on to see. Never mind that MySpace is owned by Fox News. Ever try to close a MySpace account? You can't. Owned (pwned) forever by Rupert Murdoch. Paypal? Same crap. Circuit City. GoDaddy.com. Wendy's. Etc, etc.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
Yeah.
You don't own shit.
Corporations own your info.
Government employees look at it.
Anything that passes over your IM, cell phone, or internet browser. So, you think, 'I haven't done anything wrong, why do I care? I'm not affiliated with Al-Kayder.' Guess what? Do you use internet banking? Pay your credit card online? Pay your car insurance? They sure as fuck tell you that you should, don't they? Well, guess what? Need me to say it? Need me to spell it out for you? Yeah. Your numbers. People seen them. Every time you cover your fingers when you punch em in at the market, protecting your numbers against Mrs. Catfood-buyer-could-give-a-shit standing behind you in line. Every time you make an Amazon purchase at work, and you quickly close that window lest Brian-in-the-next-cube sees your precious last 4 social security numbers.
Stop wasting your fucking time.
It's been this way since 01. Changing your habits doesn't make a goddamn difference. Your info is free for the taking. Your identity is free for the taking. Your banking. Your soche. Your debit cards. Your credit cards. 5 years worth. All of it, downloaded and copied. Backed up, transferred to a new disk or server downloaded and copied all over again. Each time at new risk of interception by our completely trustworthy civil servants. People just like us. Downloading piles and piles of info. More than (they admit!) they can even keep track of. Conversations, files, photos, emails, transactions, financials, credit card numbers...Thousands, millions of them. What's the big deal if one or two or ten get copied down? What's the big deal if someone you don't know has access to your online banking? You have 'nothing to hide,' right? Fraud? Identity theft? Myths! Never happen to me!

We all have something to hide. It's why we keep our cash in our wallets or the bank instead of scotchtaped to our fucking foreheads. Privacy is a basic human right in a capitalist society. Privacy is a basic human right, period. Shit, why else do they put doors on bathroom stalls?

We maybe suspected someone was watching us, archiving everything we do, judging everything we do. Thankfully, the New York Times discovered it, and called attention to it. It didn't just sit, as a dopey conspiracy theory on the pages of some paranoid blog. It's actually getting investigated by Congress. We have this one preliminary chance to enforce our privacy. After that, who knows?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...


Hey, what's so bad about MySpace?

abnormalbrain said...

Leoncie's friends list looks like a michigan militia with a moustache requirement.