The Information Revolution and the Snooping State

[Geee]

PJMedia:

One of my favorite bits of wisdom about the modern world goes “the information revolution happened and the information won.” We’re drowning in information. We can read most any newspaper and watch most any TV program anywhere in the world at any hour of the day or night. We can find out what so and so thinks about most anything, and we can even check to see if he has changed his mind over the years. We can also find out virtually anything we want to know about a person’s health, income, job, diet, religion, reading habits…whatever. I’m not talking about the IRS or the NSA-acting-as-FBI-proxy; these data are all over the place, from Utah to Canada to Googleland (don’t forget that “Google is Hal”). (h/t James Burt, who commented on the MIT Technology Review site).

The good news, so to speak, is that there is so much information, our abilities to sort it out are overwhelmed. Paradoxically, we’ve probably got more to worry about from the Department of Education than from the National Security Agency.

We are rightly enraged to discover that the IRS snoops into the reading and prayer habits of Obama’s political opponents, and that the NSA-acting-as-FBI-proxy intercepts and stores all the phone calls and emails it can get its virtual claws on. But it’s not just the national security agencies and the tax men that do this. Companies trying to identify likely customers do it. They also do it to real and potential competitors. Hackers do it, sometimes for their own excitement, sometimes on commission. And “educators” do it too, even to kindergarteners.

[Valin]

Two quick points

1. Welcome to the XXI century. This too is part of the hinge of history. (You didn't think it was all sunshine and lollipops, did ya?)

 

 

2. What do you want to do?