I was in denial for quite some time, but I now think it is inevitable that our concept of privacy and our right to privacy is ending. There are just too many in power who do not think such a thing is worth protecting. The average person has no recourse and will have to accept that the only thing they can do is suffer these trespasses. Why the glum outlook? There are number of things that, when added together makes me sad about the direction things are going in this country.
For one, traveling should be fun experience, unless you fly. After all, the TSA can grope, disrespect and steal from you with impunity. If you protest, they can make traveling a horrible experience for you. Yes, some agents have been caught doing bad things and were fired, but those were just the ones that got caught. How many are out there that didn't get caught? Plus the fact that airlines are nickel-and-diming their customers just to bring some vacation essentials along and if they lose or damage your stuff, there isn't all that much you can do. You can try getting some money, but they'll aggravate your efforts at every turn. So really if you fly, your physical person and your stuff is subject to another's wandering hands.
Drones can now fly within the U.S. Yes, sooner or later, the local police can spy on you by flying a remote controlled aircraft by your window or follow you around, even if they don't have a warrant. Technically, the thing is in public space, right? Again, nothing you can do about it.
The government can kill you, even if you're a U.S. citizen if they think you're a terrorist and don't even need to prove it in a court of law. They just label you the right word and bam! You're dead, and there's nothing anybody can do about it. By the way, they can do this while you're on U.S. soil. We might as well throw the Constitution out the window.
Combine the power above with the fact that the government knows pretty much everything about you cause they have been spying on everybody's email, telephone and social media activities for the past 7 years and you're probably f*cked if you have ever even hinted at thinking about something they don't like. The problem is if your own government chooses to target you for any reason, you won't know and there's nothing you can do about it and there's no way to defend yourself. Probably you'll just end up dead or disappeared and nobody will even know why.
It's not just the government, but social media and other companies can know everything there is to know about you too. Companies sell your data to other companies and round and round it goes until everything about you is known to everyone.
Even your physical body isn't sacred with the more and more hotels, resorts and cruise lines making use of biometrics. Soon, all you have to do so go somewhere and doors will either open or lock itself based on either accurate or faulty data. After all, despite the advancements in technology, they do sometimes fail or get things wrong. What if you have an identical twin? What if the systems were hacked and now everything in your life is f*cked? What recourse do you have? How can you, the average person with average income, correct this?
The issue here isn't just invasion of privacy, but also potential for abuse. The fear is what if, in our hysteria to make life appear safer, we cause suffering to thousands or millions of innocents? How many 5-year-olds had to be groped by the TSA before guidelines were changed? Where is the common sense? The government defends their ability to suspend habeas corpus, do away with the right to a trial by peers, reach into your life and spy on your every move without need for "reasonable suspicion," and this is only the beginning. Life goes on, but when will our over-reaching government stop reaching? When will it become apparent that, although nothing unbearably bad on a mass scale has happened, these are the steps to create a situation where unbearably bad things CAN happen on a mass scale? Have we learned nothing from history? Or have most of America stopped teaching it?
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