A newly declassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reveals that the federal government is buying troves of data about Americans.
No human eyes will look at your data—until you become too politically active of course!
This won’t end without better data privacy protections across the board. Data brokers hoard this info whether the government wants it or not. Restricting the collection and use in the first place would prevent the government from being able to freely buy it like they can now.
My question would be what other governments are being sold this data? I don’t think we’ll find out the US is unique here.
I mean, there hasn’t really been a sense of privacy since the Patriot Act, and Snowden et al confirmed it. And the attempts at data gathering have gotten both more overt and more insidious. (Like, selfie memes, or “get to know me” prompts, or whatever- and I’m not saying these are inherently bad or always data grabs, either.)
Honestly even if you leave your phone at home someone has a phone nearby. Whether you drive to work or take an Uber or public transit or walk, you’re on security cameras and can be traced through other means.
It’s gotten bad enough that I- and I’m sure a lot of other people as well- have problems even intimating with other people, because i feel like I’m over sharing AND selling my personal information. But it’s just a regular conversation. And that’s not okay!
I’m not saying public fora can’t (or shouldn’t) be monitored, but the panopticon has got to fucking go!
This is my shocked face 😐
Data privacy laws are beyond overdue.
Just waiting for the opportunity to introduce our social score program… except we’ll call them FREEDOM POINTS!!!
They don’t need to spy if we give the information up publicly and willingly
willingly
My other option is to withdraw from society and become self-sufficient.
Everything you do adds data that can be tracked, “anonymized”, de-anonymized, sold, aggregated and cross-referenced, and resold as a complete profile.
Want to talk to anyone without being stalked? There’s Signal, and that’s about it. You could physically go to the same place, unless you drive there, in which case your plates are getting picked up both ways. You could walk there, but you’re being captured by everyone’s smart doorbells now.
We’re all criminals, we just selectively prosecute those we don’t like.
Doesn’t bode well. But I have to imagine they’ve been doing this forever. Didn’t J Edgar Hoover do this to a smaller extent?
